The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (2-3-0) @ Detroit Red Wings (1-3-1)
The Time: 6:00pm ET
The Broadcast: ESPN, Devils Hockey Radio Network
Last Devils Game
New Jersey hosted the Ottawa Senators last night, losing 4-1 in a sloppy, disjointed mess of a game. Arseny Gritsyuk scored his first goal of the season, while Nico Daws stopped 16 of 19 shots in the loss.
Last Red Wings Game
Detroit last played on Saturday in Montreal. The Red Wings and Canadiens battled to a scoreless tie all the way through overtime, until Montreal won the shootout to hand
Detroit an official 1-0 loss. Daniil Tarasov saved all 30 shots he faced during actual game action for the Wings.
Quick Hits
Given this is the second half of a back-to-back, there’s not much new ground to cover that Tim didn’t hit in his game recap from last night. So we’ll just go with a few quick hits here.
My logical side is telling me that it’s only five games and that Anthony Mantha will be fine. But my emotional side is telling me that he just isn’t working on this team. He’s not shooting the puck anywhere close to the level he should be, he looks to be out of position frequently to my untrained eye, and he just hasn’t seemed to develop much chemistry at all with Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt. Much has been made about how difficult it is to play with Hughes and Bratt, which I agree with to a certain extent. But I also think that excuse only gets you so far. And if Mantha is going to be adding in some awful penalties, such as the terrible hook against Vancouver on Saturday and the reckless five-minute boarding major last night, then something needs to change until he figures it out. I still believe in him long term, but right now he hasn’t fit in well.
The Devils outshot Ottawa a whopping 30-20 last night. I suppose score effects played a bit of a role, as New Jersey was basically tied in shots through two periods of a 2-0 game (17-16) before outshooting Ottawa 14-3 in the final frame. New Jersey has outshot their opponents in every single game they’ve played thus far. They are outshooting their opponents by a total of 181-129, which is a remarkable differential, and score effects cannot explain all of that. New Jersey is genuinely dominating in so many areas. And yet, despite the lopsided shot totals and the sparkling advanced stats, they are a paltry 2-3-0 with a minus-seven goal differential. They really, really, really need to find a way to start converting their terrific process into actual results. The one thing that keeps me optimistic is this is basically how I felt early in the 2022-23 campaign before they actually did start to win games in bunches.
Nico Daws’ numbers were pretty terrible again. I don’t think he looked anywhere close to as bad as he did against the Islanders, as he did make some genuinely strong saves last night. But he posted a meager .842 save percentage, and according to Moneypuck, he saved almost exactly one goal worse than expected, finishing at -0.99 GSAA. I suppose it’s progress, but barely. It’s only been two games but we need to see more from Daws.
Along those lines, shooting and goaltender are once again doing this team in. The third period was the perfect encapsulation of this team’s struggles. The Devils fired 14 shots on net in the final 20 minutes, yet only scored once. Meanwhile, Ottawa managed only three shots on goal…and scored on two of them. To be fair, one was an empty-netter, but it still goes to show just how woefully inept New Jersey is when it comes to shooting and goaltending stats. This has been their main source of frustration for three seasons running now.
Speaking of the empty net, do the Devils ever score when they pull their goalie? I’m sure it’s not as bad as it seems, but I swear it feels like New Jersey pulling their goaltender at the end of games is just an automatic goal for the other team. They never succeed in that game state.
The Devils complete their first back-to-back of the season tonight. Back-to-backs had been a source of immense struggle for this team in recent years, but last season showed genuine progress. In 2025-26, New Jersey went 8-7-0 in the second half of back-to-backs. It makes sense that any team would perform worse than usual working with zero days of rest, but it had gotten out of hand since the 2023-24 campaign. If the Devils can maintain their gains from a season ago in back-to-backs, that would go a long way toward making this season a successful one.
And finally, let’s end with some optimism just to try and cleanse the palate. I know everyone is sick of hearing about “chart wins” for this team, but I really do believe that if the process and the underlying metrics continue to hold up at anywhere close to the rate they’re going now, wins will surely follow. And at an individual level, we’ve seen some terrific growth from Luke Hughes, who you could argue is the most important Devil this season outside of his brother Jack. New Jersey has been starved for a true number one defenseman since Dougie Hamilton’s Norris-caliber 2022-23, and if Hughes can finally take that leap, the Devils will be in much better shape than before. Luke Evangelista had a bit of a clunker last night, but he’s still fit in very well, and the fourth line continues to roll, which is huge for a team that has desperately needed depth scoring for a long time now. And I do believe the fact that the big guns of Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and Nico Hischier haven’t truly gotten going yet can be seen as a good sign. Because you just know they’ll figure it out eventually. The Devils are in a bad spot right now, but 2-3-0 is far from the end of the world and there really are positives to grasp at.
Chaos In Detroit
In the other corner, the Detroit Red Wings are a dysfunctional mess. They fired franchise icon and long time general manager Steve Yzerman over the summer, much later than they should have. They still don’t have an official replacement. Their captain, Dylan Larkin, requested a trade months ago but is still on the team. Their second-best defenseman and potential franchise cornerstone, Simon Edvinsson, is an RFA that STILL doesn’t have a contract and has been skating in his native Sweden in the interim. And the team has only a single win in their first five games.
Things are very, very bad in Hockeytown.
This early in the season, I refuse to call anything a must-win. I personally think the term is way overused. But what I will say is, despite this being the second half of a back-to-back in which the team had to travel, New Jersey should really win this game to expunge a lot of the bad vibes. They’ll still need to do more to gain the trust of the fanbase considering their three wins would have come against two bad teams in Vancouver and Detroit and one shockingly disappointing team in Philadelphia, and they keep losing whenever they play decent to good teams in (Islanders, Mammoth, and Senators). But a win is a win, and a win tonight would be huge for the psyche of this fanbase.
Projected Lineup
Here’s how the Red Wings lined up in their last game on Saturday:
I’m not sure if they’ll roll 11-7 again or if they’ll go back to a traditional lineup tonight. If it’s the latter, here’s how they looked in practice yesterday:
Expect something resembling one of these two lineups.
One Last Observation
Note that tonight’s game is starting earlier than usual at 6:00pm. That’s because tonight is one of the NHL’s Frozen Frenzy nights, where all 32 teams are in action with start times staggered throughout the night. I personally think it’s a great idea, though I think I’d like to see this done more on weekends after football season to maximize the impact though.
But something I want to say is that, perhaps I’ve been busier than usual lately, but I haven’t seen any promotional material for tonight’s festivities. I only realized it was happening tonight when I saw the weird start time and the fact that there are 16 games on the docket, and I put two and two together. As someone who consumes quite a bit of hockey content, if I’m missing the promotions for tonight’s game, then I would have to imagine that most other people are as well. The marketing for something like this needs to be way, way better if you actually want to grow the game.
Again, perhaps I was living under a rock recently and missed all the promotion. Did any of you see tonight promoted a lot recently? I’d genuinely love to know.
Your Take
What do you make of tonight’s game? How important is a bounce back win? Who on the team needs to step up? As always, thanks for reading!
