Articles in New Jersey Devils

via the New Jersey Devils,

The New Jersey Devils announced today that the team has named Travis Green as an associate coach to join head coach Lindy Ruff's staff. The announcement was made by Executive Vice President/General Manager Tom Fitzgerald.

"Travis has a wealth of coaching experience from his time at the junior, AHL and NHL levels," said Lindy Ruff. "He is super excited about working with our team and I know his attention to detail within the game will have a positive impact. Travis's energy and engaging personality are great assets for our group, and a huge benefit when working with our players one-on-one.

added 1:58pm, Press release is below.

Eight UFAs.

NEW YORK (May 8, 2023) – New Jersey Devils forward Tomas Tatar has been fined $5,000, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for high-sticking Carolina Hurricanes forward Sebastian Aho during Game 3 of the teams’ Second Round series in New Jersey on Sunday, May 7, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

The incident occurred at 12:20 of the first period. Tatar was assessed a minor penalty for high-sticking.

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from Ethan Sears of the New York Post,

The Devils have already come back from one 2-0 deficit to win a playoff series, so why not another?

That was the prevailing question on Sunday afternoon in Newark, as the Devils announced themselves in Game 3 against the Hurricanes, playing a relentless 60 minutes of hockey on their way to an 8-4 demolition that pulled their deficit in the series back to 2-1 and delivered a message: New Jersey will be no easy out.

“You guys throw around inexperience, you throw that around. Now we’ve been in this situation before where we’ve been down 2-0,” Jack Hughes said following a four-point performance that included a Gordie Howe hat trick. “You don’t want to say you’re comfortable there, but you know it’s still a long series to go. We’re back in this thing.”

With Vitek Vanecek replacing Akira Schmid in net and Luke Hughes making his playoff debut to Damon Severson’s left, the Devils delivered a blindingly tenacious performance.

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Catch the highlights below.

from Greg Wyshynski of ESPN,

The New Jersey Devils limped home after Game 2 against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night in a familiar spot: Down 0-2 in their series, having been embarrassed by their opponents in consecutive losses.

"We should be really pissed off right now," said Devils captain Nico Hischier, after Carolina's 6-1 win in Raleigh. "I think what bothers me the most is just that we lost our battles and it's the playoffs. But we can't feel too sorry for ourselves. It's a series. We have to come back to our own barn, have a bounce-back game and forget what happened tonight as fast as possible."

What gave the Devils hope after the game was a sense of déjà vu: They dropped the first two games of their opening round series against the New York Rangers, before roaring back to win in seven games. In fact, they were also dominated in those games, getting outscored 10-2 in two home losses.

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Highlights are below.

from Chip Alexander and Luke DeCock of the News & Observer,

Why change what appeared to work so well?

That appears to be the Carolina Hurricanes’ approach to Game 2 of their playoff series against the New Jersey Devils....

At the morning skate Friday, Andersen again was in the starter’s crease. The lines remained unchanged, as well as the defensive pairs — a status-quo lineup....

Devils coach Lindy Ruff is counting on a better start, better play and better result in Game 2.

Ruff said again that beating the New York Rangers in seven games in the opening round took its toll on his team. There was a hangover effect, especially after the emotional win in Game 7. “I expect a lot more energy,” Ruff said after the Devils’ morning skate.

“I expect a lot more speed, I expect the team to play a lot quicker. Give them a lot of credit. They played a really good game. I didn’t like a lot of parts of our game. We lacked speed, we lacked energy.

“I thought the second period we started to win battles ... we played quicker. We were a lot more connected and our puck support was better, and that led to better opportunities. But we had some guys whose tanks didn’t quite have enough energy in them."

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from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

The second-round matchup between the Carolina Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils promised to be a track meet, with two of the league’s fastest teams squaring off.

But only one got out of the starting block.

A rested Carolina squad ran a sluggish, seemingly unprepared Devils team out of PNC Arena early, racing to a 3-0 lead, and was never threatened in a 5-1 Game 1 victory Wednesday in Raleigh, N.C....

Carolina had pretty much a perfect period to start this series, outshooting the Devils 11-1, with that one shot a harmless Bastian shot from the neutral zone. The Devils didn’t even have a shot attempt in the first seven minutes. Carolina led 2-0 after one, but it could have been even more, as Martin Necas came up empty on two Grade A chances.

It looked awfully similar to the Devils’ first period in Game 1 against the Rangers, when they fell behind early and looked generally lost. The optimist can point to that and say, hey, it worked out in the long run, as the Devils righted the ship and won games 3 through 5, along with Game 7. The pessimist will point out that Lindy Ruff’s squad looked utterly unprepared for an opponent for the second straight Game 1.

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They will head to Carolina to play the Hurricanes on Wednesday after shutting out the New York Rangers 4-0.

Game highlights are below.

Ready?

NEW YORK (April 30, 2023) -- For the first time since their epic double-overtime thriller in the 1994 Conference Finals, the Hudson River rivals New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers will meet in a Game 7 to decide their Eastern Conference First Round series on Monday, May 1, at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The winner will advance to the Second Round and a matchup with their Metropolitan Division rival Carolina Hurricanes.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

After 60 minutes of relentless hockey from a team possessed, after three straight victories, one more impressive and decisive than the next, this is what we know five games into this Battle of the Hudson:

There is no quit in New Jersey.

The Rangers, on the other hand, we’ll find out if they can live up to their very own mantra when they take the Garden ice on Saturday facing Game 6 elimination following Thursday’s 4-0 paddy whacking at the Rock.

“Win one game,” Chris Kreider said. “The playoffs are comprised of highs and lows and we’re at a low point right now. If we can’t climb our way out of this, we don’t deserve to go on a deep run.

“Win one game.”

The roof is falling in on the marquee Rangers. They have scored two goals in the last three games — one goal in the last 127:57 — against freshman netminder Akira Schmid, who is turning himself into an instant folk hero. After scoring four power-play goals on their first seven opportunities, the Rangers have been blanked since the second period of Game 2.

That is not the worst of it, for while going 0-for-13 in the interim, the Blueshirts have yielded a pair of PPG’s to the Devils plus a shorthanded score in this one that seemed to break the Rangers.

Listen to this: Trailing 3-0 after the second period, the Rangers were outshot 20-2 in the third period.

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from Mollie Walker of the New York Post,

From strutting out of Prudential Center to slinking out of it, the Rangers have been turned upside down by the Devils.

The same Rangers team that came into the same building just last week and looked like they weren’t going to break a sweat in the first round ventured back for a pivotal, series-swinging Game 5 and were blown out, 4-0, by the Devils on Thursday night.

The Broadway Blueshirts who danced around and had their way with the Devils in Games 1 and 2 in Newark were shut out by a rookie goaltender and are now facing elimination Saturday night at the Garden.

“Got to win one game,” Chris Kreider said. “Got to go home. We’ve had a terrific fan base all year, we let them, we let ourselves down at home. So it’s up to us to show up and play the way we want to play from puck drop. … It’s time to step up and do those things.”

Oh, how the mighty Rangers are falling, while the timid Devils have awakened.

The Rangers have drifted far away from what they do best as this series has progressed.

The Devils, on the other hand, have gotten the hang of this playoffs thing.

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Highlights are below.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Mika Zibanejad has been here before, a year ago actually, during the first-round series against the Penguins in which he went scoreless as the Rangers trailed in the series 3-2.

Three goals later from Zibanejad, two in Game 6 and one in Game 7, and the Rangers were on their way to the run that served as a platform for this 107-point season.

“You and I have talked at different times this year about what I learned going through that, and what I know is that I can’t let the fact that I haven’t scored get into my head,” Zibanejad told The Post after Monday’s 3-1 Game 4 defeat to the Devils that squared the series at two-all. “I can’t let that change the rest of my game that is also important.

“If it were up to me, I would have seven goals by now. Obviously I’m frustrated. I’m not happy. I know this is part of my job and I know that questions arise about it when we are losing. But I can’t dwell on that and I can’t dwell on me. It’s all about us.”

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Below are the game highlights.

from Mollie Walker of the New York Post,

he Devils have made this first-round series against the Rangers competitive again.

Dougie Hamilton scored 11:36 into overtime to keep the Devils’ spirits alive and hand the Rangers a 2-1 loss Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, which prevented the home team from strengthening their already strong grip on this series.

“When we’ve been challenged and we’ve been down we have always answered the call this year — always,” Devils head coach Lindy Ruff said after his team’s win, which cut the Rangers’ series lead to 2-1.

The contest simply played more to the Devils’ style than the Rangers. With the score tied at one-all in the third period, the game turned into a track meet and the Devils were able to counter any offense the Rangers generated. That carried into overtime, as well.

And that was just what the Devils needed to alter the trajectory of the series.

cotinued

Below watch the game highlights.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

If Cher could turn back time, if she could find the way, she would rewind the clock to one year ago so the Rangers could begin the playoffs with Igor Shesterkin at the top of his considerable game.

Lo and behold, it appears that the world-class entertainer has done just that. The process started five-plus weeks ago, but when the Blueshirts took out the Devils by an emphatic 5-1 score Tuesday night in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series, Shesterkin indeed was a facsimile of the netminder who won the 2021-22 Vezina Trophy and drove his team to the 2022 conference finals.

“It’s what we have come to expect,” Chris Kreider said after notching a pair of power play deflections to surpass Rod Gilbert as the Rangers’ all-time leading playoff goal-scorer with 36. “He’s our best player and not only does he make big saves, he makes them look easy.”

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Game highlights are below.

from Greg Wyshynski of ESPN,

Madison Square Garden, home of the New York Rangers, is 11 miles away from Newark, New Jersey's Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils. They are separated by a river. They are bonded by an intense, decades-long enmity.

The Battle of the Hudson is one of the NHL's most storied rivalries. For the first time since 2012, the Rangers and Devils will face each other in a playoff series, beginning tonight in Newark. It marks the seventh time these franchises will have met in the Stanley Cup playoffs, with New York holding a 4-2 lead in series victories.

The animosity between these unfriendly neighbors extends from the fans to the players to even their front offices -- consider that the Rangers and Devils made their first trade together in 2018.

"The hatred? I couldn't even put a number on it. The hatred was off the charts," said Ken Daneyko, who played 20 seasons with the Devils before becoming a broadcaster for the team. "It was an unwritten rule that you wouldn't even say their name. I imagine it was the same thing for them. It was that kind of rivalry."

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No penalty on the play.

from Ryan Dixon of Sportsnet,

Superstars, almost without fail, have lofty standards for themselves. But sometimes Jack Hughes’ bar for when it’s time to break into a grin is a little too high for New Jersey Devils teammate Erik Haula.

“Game days he’s really quiet,” Haula says of the guy he’s played a fair bit beside this year. “He’s in his own bubble. Playing with him quite a few games, it almost pissed me off because he doesn’t give you much until he gets hat trick. Then I might get a smile from him.”

Haula, naturally, had a little smirk himself as he relayed that tid-bit about Hughes. The first-year Devil did stress, though, that it didn’t take long to realize how New Jersey’s most dynamic player carries himself.

“He’s dialled in, he’s focused on his game,” Haula said. “I learned that pretty quick. I can respect that.”

How could anybody not respect what the 21-year-old Hughes has done this year, building on a breakout second half last season to become one of the most feared scoring and playmaking threats in the league?

Hughes sits 12th in NHL scoring with 76 points in 58 outings and when you start going through the names above him, the thought of him breaking into the Hart Trophy conversation isn’t farfetched.

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added 9:28pm, NJD release is below.

from Sportsnet,

There’s putting the team on your back, and then there’s doing what Jack Hughes did for the New Jersey Devils on Friday Night.

The superstar skater logged a mind-numbing 6:02 shift to end the game for the Devils, as the Metropolitan Division’s top team battled from behind to no avail against the New York Islanders.

Hughes’ remarkable shift set an NHL record dating back to 2007-08, though it wouldn’t be enough to prevent the Devils second regulation loss in 21 games.

The 21-year-old’s entire third period was one for the ages, as he battled furiously to keep his team in it. After scoring a goal at the 13:39 mark of the period, Hughes briefly stepped off the ice for his final breather of the game, before embarking on his record breaking shift.

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from Greg Wyshynski of ESPN,

Through Tuesday night, the Devils, Islanders and Rangers had a combined .657 points percentage, or the number of points in the standings divided by the total possible points. If that holds, it would be the most successful season for the three rivals combined since the Devils relocated from Colorado in 1982. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the previous high for combined points percentage is .599 in the 1993-94 season.

As Stan Fischler told me recently: "I don't recall a trifecta quite as special as this."

That assessment carries the weight of history. Fischler attended his first Rangers game in 1939. As a journalist, he covered each of these franchises during their Stanley Cup championship runs. He's seen a lot of New York hockey. He's never seen it look like this.

"Right now, we have the rare opportunity -- slumps notwithstanding -- for each of the Met clubs having a shot at making the playoffs," he said. "This is rare, exciting stuff for the fans overall, and me in particular. It feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I'm sopping it up every night."

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