The New Jersey Devils had a hot game tonight against the St. Louis Blues and ended its five-game losing streak.
The last win that this team had was on January 29. It has been well over a month since they had any wins. In tonight’s game, they beat the Blues by a final score of 3-1.
Many shots had been taken by both teams but no one was able to score. For tonight’s game, the Devils attempted 33 shots. They won 28 of the 55 face-offs during tonight’s game. The Devils’ Timo Meier was the player who took the most shots tonight, in total he went for eight of them.
Meier had his best game in a long time. Meier scored his 16th goal in the second period. He was assisted by Brett Pesce and Luke Hughes. He scored on a Devils power play one out of two that they had for the rest of the night. It set the tone for the rest of the evening for this team. This shot was also the first score for New Jersey in well over eight games.
They kept the fire up in the third period. The Devils made sure they kept the team at bay and stopped them from scoring. However, one error was made by the team’s goalie Jacob Markstrom allowing the Blues to score in third. He stepped out to retrieve the puck and the Blues took hold of it allowing them to score. He had 25 saves out of 26 tonight.
The Devils also made the effort to have very few penalties called on them. In total they only had three called on them tonight and it was only one in each period of the game. All were called due to high sticking, tripping, and delay of game because the puck went over the glass. However, New Jersey had less called against them than there have been.
It was shortly after this occurred that the Devils played much better defensively. With 3:44 remaining, St. Louis held an empty net. The Devils tried on several occasions to get the puck into the goal from a distance but fell short each time. In the last ten seconds of the game, it was a team effort to finish the job between Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and Connor Brown.
The Devils will return on Tuesday March 3 at home in Newark, New Jersey to take on the Florida Panthers. The game will take place at 7 p.m. It may only be one win tonight but if the Devils keep this up, they may be able to bring themselves back for a playoff run this year.
