The Matchup:
New Jersey Devils (1-2-0) vs. Vancouver Canucks (2-3-0)The Time: 3:30pm ET
The Broadcast: MSGSN, Devils Hockey Radio Network
Last Devils Game
New Jersey last played all the way back on Tuesday, losing 5-4 5-3 to the Utah Mammoth. Jake Allen took the loss, while Luke Evangelista scored his first two goals as a Devil. Jesper Boqvist potted the other marker, and Timo Meier should have scored if not for the officials deciding they didn’t feel like letting him score because they were in a bad mood or something.
Last Canucks Game
Vancouver began an East Coast swing on Thursday in Carolina against the defending champion Hurricanes. To put it lightly, it did not go well for the Canucks, as they lost 7-2 to kick off their cross country trip. Jake DeBrusk collected both goals for Vancouver. Kevin Lankinen played the first two periods, got yanked after allowing six goals on 18 shots, and Leevi Merilainen played the third period, giving up one goal on 16 shots.
Roster Shakeup And Injury Updates
Before the season began, many of us thought that a move at forward needed to be made considering the glut of players up front and the selection of goaltender Remi Poirier off of waivers. Thanks to Johnny Kovacevic starting the season on IR, that did not happen, with New Jersey rolling 14-6-3 out of the gate. But with Kovacevic seemingly on the verge of returning, something finally gave on Thursday, with Stefan Noesen being placed on waivers:
Yesterday, we got news that Noesen cleared waivers, meaning he can be assigned to AHL Utica. Noesen’s entire cap hit does not come off the books, but New Jersey does gain $1.225M of space with Noesen’s demotion. Assuming Noesen himself keeps the injury bug at bay, I am going to assume this will not be the last we see of him in a Devils sweater, as injuries are sure to hit the rest of the forward group at some point. That being said, maybe Sunny Mehta finds a trade partner for Noesen, although I’m skeptical of that considering he was almost certainly on the block through the offseason, into the preseason, and up until the decision to put him on waivers. And no one bit. But I suppose if there’s a team out there that suffers a raft of forward injuries themselves, maybe all of a sudden they’ll want to press the Stefan Noesen button. Either way, Noesen is no longer with the big club for now, and the Devils get some minimal cap relief.
This also seemed to bring the paper move of Anton Silaev being called up to the NHL for the sole purpose of accruing cap space. And finally, the team also officially placed Nick Bjugstad on LTIR.
And before we move on, let me just say this: whatever comes next for Noesen, he’s been a good soldier in two different stints with the Devils and I wish him well regardless of what path he takes going forward.
Now that we’ve gotten all the cap gymnastics out of the way, let’s take a look at the rest of the roster. Jonas Siegenthaler left last game with a relatively serious-looking injury, but head coach Sheldon Keefe told the media after practice on Thursday that he’s doing better than they thought he would be. It’s still unclear whether he will play today though, but he practiced yesterday after missing Thursday, which is a good sign. We’ll have to keep an eye on it as gametime approaches.
Connor Brown is not yet ready to return, with the club hoping he can slot back into the lineup next week.
And finally, after a brief line shakeup with Anthony Mantha and Arseni Gritsyuk flip-flopping in the third period on Tuesday’s contest, the forward groups were back to what we’ve seen thus far at practice. On defense, with Siegenthaler out on Thursday, Declan Chisholm was paired with Dougie Hamilton, while Dillon skated with Kovacevic, who as mentioned, appears close to returning.
And as the tweet indicates, Jack Hughes took a maintenance day. He was on the ice for practice yesterday so there appears to be no serious concerns here right now.
Poirier’s Time Coming Soon?
Another interesting development took place at practice on Thursday: Remi Poirier worked with his new team for the first time. As of yet, there is no clear plan for getting Poirier into a game or setting a specific goalie rotation, per both Poirier and Keefe. But with Allen’s mediocre outing on Tuesday and Daws’ clunker against the Islanders last Saturday, it stands to reason that Poirier might get his shot soon if New Jersey’s goaltending falters some more.
1-0, Them
The New Jersey Devils have played three games thus far. They have not played with a lead at any point this season.
No, that’s not a typo. The only time New Jersey has ever seen their number on the scoreboard surpass their opponents’ number is when Jack Hughes potted the overtime winner in the season opener against the Flyers. Thus, the Devils have not played one second of hockey this season from in front.
Since the 2023-24 campaign, “1-0, Them” has become a deeply ingrained part of New Jersey Devils culture. They are one of the worst teams in hockey when it comes to giving up the first goal. And to make matters worse, when they give up that first tally, they have a harder time than most teams at actually coming back and winning. It’s no wonder this team has woefully disappointed basically every season since 2022-23.
After allowing the opening goal in all three games so far, and after not actually holding a lead at any point this season, I really, really need to see this team score first today. This Vancouver squad might not be the doormat we thought they would be entering this season (more on that in a bit), but this is still a team that New Jersey needs to take care of business against. And it starts with finally scoring first and playing with a lead.
Luke^2 Leading The Charge
Things aren’t great for New Jersey right now, but it’s only three games into the season and 1-2-0 is far from the worst start ever. The Dallas Stars, a team many think is in the inner-circle of Stanley Cup favorites, also started 1-2-0 this season. Montreal is currently 1-2-1. No one is saying those teams won’t be just fine. Obviously a big difference is that Dallas has consistently shown they can put up big regular seasons and win playoff rounds in recent years, and Montreal just got to the Conference Final. They have a track record, I get it. But my point is that it is far, far too early to panic.
Still, there are issues to be resolved and players that need to step up. But the two players that I think have absolutely been pulling their weight? That would be the two Lukes, Hughes and Evangelista.
Let’s start with Hughes. Again, we’re dealing with tiny sample sizes here but Hughes might actually be putting together the breakout campaign we’ve been waiting for this season. He was tremendous in the first two contests (yes, even the Islander game), and while he took a step back against Utah he was still not awful. He scored a big goal against Philadelphia, and although he hasn’t registered a point in the two games since, his play-driving numbers are outstanding (all numbers courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and reflect 5-on-5 play):
Hughes is tilting the ice in a major way, all while soaking up just over 24 minutes a night. He also has 11 total shots on goal through three games, which is a terrific mark for a defenseman and very encouraging from a player who really needed to work on getting shots on target. To put that in context, in Dougie Hamilton’s 2022-23 season, a year that every Devils fan would acknowledge was a truly elite campaign from Hamilton, he fired 275 shots on goal in 82 games. That comes out to approximately 3.4 shots per game. Hughes is currently sitting at 3.7 shots per game. And if you’re concerned with Hughes’ ability to actually score on his shots, Hamilton, a genuinely elite shooter in his prime, registered a shooting percentage of 8.0% in his 2022-23 magnum opus. Hughes’ one goal on 11 shots comes in at 9.1%. He’s playing huge minutes, he’s controlling play, and he’s peppering goaltenders with shots. All the small sample caveats apply, but Hughes has been one of the exceptions to New Jersey’s early-season struggles.
Elsewhere, Evangelista has fit in seamlessly with his new team. Thanks to his two-goal effort against the Mammoth, Evangelista has three points in three games. He’s also another Devil that is absolutely running over opponents from a play-driving standpoint:
According to Hockey Stat Cards, Evangelista is a huge positive in both Offensive and Defensive Net Rating, combining to put him in roughly the 90th percentile league-wide in overall value. He’s been everything New Jersey could have hoped for and more.
What makes it even more encouraging is the fact that he’s doing this on a line with Nico Hischier, who we all know gets fed the toughest matchups night in and night out. He’s also averaging 18:28 of ice time so far, a massive leap from the 16:37 he was getting a season ago, which itself was a career high at the time. Sheldon Keefe is trusting him with a big minutes increase, and against top competition no less. Evangelista has rewarded his coach’s faith in him with some stellar play.
None of New Jersey’s big guns have truly gotten going yet, which honestly I consider a positive in a way. You just know that Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and Nico Hischier will find their footing soon, and when they do this team will start to look much better. But as the top guys have faltered out of the gate, the two Lukes have answered the call and kept this team afloat. It has been a very encouraging start to New Jersey’s hopeful franchise defenseman and top newcomer.
Fun And Tougher Than Advertised
With some competition from the likes of the Calgary Flames and Chicago Blackhawks, the Vancouver Canucks were considered to be one of the worst teams in the NHL heading into the season. It is obviously quite early, but through five games, they have been…interesting.
Their season began with a home-and-home against the Edmonton Oilers that turned into a horrorcore clown show of a spectacle. Vancouver won a wild 6-5 contest in overtime in the opener, then lost 9-7 (9-7!) in game number two. In that 9-7 defeat, Vancouver went down by scores of 5-0, 6-1, and 8-2 before storming back to make it 8-6. Edmonton scored to stabilize things, and while Vancouver potted one more before the curtain closed, it obviously wasn’t enough.
Hard to believe that a 6-5 overtime game was the tame one in that set.
After that Kafka-esque start to the year, Vancouver beat Calgary 4-1, then lost a close 3-2 decision to the Vegas Golden Knights. Until their recent debacle against the Hurricanes, Vancouver was either winning games, or battling hard in their losses. They’ve shown more fight than we all expected.
Of course, as we all suspected, the engine behind the Canucks’ offense has been old friend Paul Cotter. The former Devil leads the team with four goals through five games, and is second on the team with six points, trailing only Elias Pettersson’s eight. Cotter got off to an extremely hot start with New Jersey (four goals, five points in his first four games with the club back in 2024) before cooling off to Arctic levels the rest of the way. So I absolutely do not expect this to continue. But it is worth mentioning that Cotter is up to his old tricks again, getting off to an improbably good start with a new team.
Unfortunately for Vancouver, their grit and scrap probably won’t last much longer. Despite them being in every game and starting a respectable 2-3-0, they are getting bulldozed in the run of play per Natural Stat Trick:
So here’s the bottom line: This is a game that New Jersey absolutely should win. Not only that, but they need to score first, and they need to put up a crooked number both on the scoreboard and in the advanced stats. I suppose at the end of the day a win is a win, so I wouldn’t complain too much if the Devils squeaked out a 2-1 victory with middling play-driving numbers or something like that. But I would be concerned moving forward, as I think a performance like that against a team this bad would be predictive of a lot more losses to come.
So in the end, I would love to see New Jersey win something like 5-1 with sparkling advanced metrics. That would go a long way toward alleviating a lot of my concerns about this team. Yes, they would still need to continue playing well against actually good clubs, but baby steps first.
Potential Lineup
Here is how Vancouver lined up in their last game on Thursday:
Expect much the same tonight.
Your Take
What do you make of this game? Are you expecting a bounce back effort from the Devils? How concerned are you about Paul Cotter scoring? As always, thanks for reading!
