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The New Jersey Devils managed to squeeze a point out of Saturday night's contest but they were thoroughly dominated by the Pittsburgh Penguins and lucky to come away with anything.
Their defense, as has been the case over the last few games, was extremely leaky and consistently gave up Grade A chances with little resistance.
They'll be looking to tighten up and get back on track tonight against the Winnipeg Jets.
The Jets are off to a disappointing 10-12-2 start but they have dealt with a ton of injuries. Bryan Little, Mathieu Perrault, Shawn Mathias and Tyler Myers have all missed time - in some cases significant time - while defenseman Tobias Enstrom is currently away from the team due to personal issues.
Despite all the injuries the Jets have still scored a ton of goals. Led by Mark Scheifele and rookie Patrik Laine their offense has been among the best the league has to offer through the first 1/4 of the season.
Keeping the puck out has been difficult at times but Little, a very solid two-way player, is expected to return to the lineup this evening and will certainly help the Jets' cause.
The Jets are 7-4-0 on home soil while the Devils have struggled away from The Rock winning just three of 12 road games thus far. This will be a tough test for them.
Note: there has been no word on line combinations the Devils will use with Beau Bennett out so I took a stab at them myself.
Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri
Pavel Zacha - Adam Henrique - P.A. Parenteau
Sergey Kalinin - Jacob Josefson - Nick Lappin
Miles Wood - Vern Fiddler - Devante Smith-Pelly
Andy Greene - Damon Severson
Yohann Auvitu - Ben Lovejoy
John Moore - Kyle Quincey
Cory Schneider
And the expected lines for the Jets (via dailyfaceoff.com):
Nik Ehlers - Mark Scheifele - Patrik Laine
Blake Wheeler - Bryan Little - Drew Stafford
Brandon Tanev - Adam Lowry - Marko Dano
Kyle Connor - Andrew Copp - Chris Thorburn
Josh Morrissey - Dustin Byfuglien
Ben Chiarot - Jacob Trouba
Mark Stuart - Paul Postma
Connor Hellebuyck
A few notes:
1) Injuries have played a part, but the Devils and Jets are both bottom-6 in terms of generating shot attempts and scoring chances on a per-minute basis. This shouldn't be a high-event game at 5v5, although lately the Devils have been leaky on the defensive side of things and the Jets are without two of their top-5 blueliners.
2) The Jets are 6th last in penalty kill% and their underlying numbers a man down have been terrible. They're 29th in shot attempts against/60 and 22nd in scoring chances against/60. Maybe the Devils can accomplish something on the PP against Winnipeg -- chances are they'll get plenty of opportunities (the Jets aren't very disciplined).
3) Ehlers and Scheifele have been two of the NHL's most efficient 5v5 scorers to date while Laine is already among the best goal scorers the league has to offer. The Devils are going to have their hands full with this trio.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 8:00 pm eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and TSN3.
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