The Matchup: The New Jersey Devils (8-4-0) at the Colorado Avalanche (6-5-1)
The Time: 9:00 PM EDT
The Broadcast:
TV — MSGSN; Radio — Devils Hockey NetworkShort Streak
With last night’s win over the Dallas Stars, the New Jersey Devils have won four in a row. This is the first time they have won four in a row since October 2025, when they won eight in a row from October 11 to 26. That streak was broken, of course, by the Colorado Avalanche in an 8-4 loss after Brett Pesce left the previous game with a bad hand injury.
At the time, Jacob Markstrom was returning from an injury and allowed eight goals on 42 shots. But these are not those Devils.
Tonight, Jake Allen will be starting after Connor Hellebuyck’s win last night. Remi Poirier will be backing up. And the most shots the Devils have allowed this season was 34 to the Avalanche on October 20, as Colorado was credited for six shots on goal with an empty net and a whopping 19 third period shots when they attempted to come back against the Devils. But aside from that home win over Colorado, the Devils’ last game giving up 30 or more shots against was on October 6 against Utah, when they gave up 32 shots. Over the last three, the Devils have not allowed more than the 18 shots they let up last night.
Tonight is going to be a tough night for the Devils to continue that string of stingy defense. Colorado, with their high-powered offense, is going to be playing a little angry. They are coming off of two days of rest, but they have not won consecutive games since September 30 and October 3, when they beat the Kings and Blues by a combined score of 14-5. Since then, Colorado is 4-5-1, with their most recent game being a 6-2 loss to the Nashville Predators.
Ice Time in the Back-to-Back
Sheldon Keefe is going to have to consider how well his team is going to play if they play a lot of minutes tonight, but he did a great job of keeping some of his players’ minutes down against the Stars. Jesper Boqvist played a season-high 14:03 while Arseny Gritsyuk only played 13:18. Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier both played under 17 minutes. Brett Pesce played a season-low 18:07. Nico Hischier, who averaged over 20 minutes per game over the last two seasons, has not played 20 minutes since October 6. Jack Hughes has not played 20 minutes in a game since October 17. So while the Devils are less rested than Colorado, Sheldon Keefe has been doing a very good job of distributing ice time as evenly as is appropriate during this string of wins. And they’re going to need to be fresh against an Avalanche team that has three great lines.
Tonight might be a good night for the Devils to get Declan Chisholm back into the lineup. Personally, I would not mind Keefe taking the risk of a double-left-handed third-pairing of Chisholm and Dillon, as Brenden Dillon has played excellently over the last couple of games. Matchup-wise, Dillon and Chisholm have pretty decent speed, and the Avalanche are a very fast team. Johnny Kovacevic, while playing decently most nights, does not have much in his legs right now. In the Devils’ last game against the Avalanche, Chisholm was second on the defense in xGF% behind Jonas Siegenthaler per Natural Stat Trick and MoneyPuck, also scoring the go-ahead goal in the second period, after which the Devils never gave up their lead.
Even Contributions
Just like the Devils have been able to give even ice time, they have gotten a lot of similar contributions from their players through 12 games this season. Of course, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and Arseny Gritsyuk are all have double-digit points, Nico Hischier has seven goals, and Luke Evangelista has eight points in nine games. But after that, seven players on the team have five or six points. This includes Jesper Boqvist, who has four goals through only 10 games. And last night, Brett Pesce joined this group with his assist to Jack Hughes in the third period.
The Devils should be extra encouraged by the fact that some of these guys have been a little snakebitten. Timo Meier has just one goal on 46 shots. That will not last forever. Dougie Hamilton rang a shot off the iron last game. Somehow, Luke Hughes got what was only his second assist of the season on a Nico Hischier goal last night before later scoring another highlight-reel goal.
It’s funny to say that a team that is only one goal under three goals scored per game is underperforming their chances on offense, but that is still the case for this club despite their 16 goals in their four-game winning streak. And while they scored four on Scott Wedgewood last time out against the Avalanche, they should have to do it against Mackenzie Blackwood this time around. This season, Blackwood is 5-3-0 with an .893 save percentage and 2.91 goals against average. Colorado certainly wants the run-and-gun, but let’s hope that the Devils are still feeling fresh enough to match. It might not look like the shot count slaughter the Devils put to the Avalanche through half of their last matchup, but we only need the goals.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of tonight’s game? Do you think Jake Allen will have a good start against Colorado again? Will the Devils’ offense keep clicking? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for reading.
