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Tonight the New Jersey Devils play host to the St. Louis Blues looking to rebound from a disaster of a game that was last night in Montreal.
Playing against a Canadiens team that had won four times in their last 11 games, and were missing two of their top three centers, the Devils were caved in from the word go.
There were tons of defensive lapses, turnovers, etc. and that led to a struggling Cory Schneider facing 49 shots on goal in regulation. As you'd expect, that didn't turn out well.
The Devils have now allowed three or more goals in 10 of the last 11 and things aren't about to get any easier.
All but one of New Jersey's next 11 games are against teams currently in playoff position and the one exception (Nashville) is a point out of a playoff spot with four(!) games in hand. In other words, there's nothing close to a gimme during this stretch.
The Devils have to go through the St. Louis Blues twice. They have to go through the high-flying New York Rangers twice. They have to go through the Washington Capitals twice. They have to go through the Pittsburgh Penguins twice. They also have to play the Philadelphia Flyers, who score like nobody's business, the surprising Ottawa Senators, and a Predators team that should have won by three the last time the two sides met.
If the Devils don't tighten up defensively, and fast, things could get very ugly for them this holiday season.
Here are the expected line combinations for New Jersey:
Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri
Taylor Hall - Adam Henrique - P.A. Parenteau
Beau Bennett - Sergey Kalinin - Nick Lappin
Miles Wood - Vern Fiddler - Devante Smith-Pelly
Andy Greene - Damon Severson
Yohann Auvitu - Ben Lovejoy
John Moore - Kyle Quincey
Keith Kinkaid
And the expected lines for the Blues (via dailyfaceoff.com):
Jaden Schwartz - Alex Steen - Vladimir Tarasenko
Robby Fabbri - Paul Stastny - David Perron
Jori Lehtera - Patrik Berglund - Dmitrij Jaskin
Scottie Upshall - Kyle Brodziak - Ryan Reaves
Jay Bouwmeester - Alex Pietrangelo
Carl Gunnarsson - Kevin Shattenkirk
Joel Edmundson - Colton Parayko
Jake Allen
A few notes:
1) The Devils have allowed three or more goals in 10 of their last 11 games and tonight they're starting their backup in the latter half of a back-to-back against one of the best teams in the NHL. Not only that, Vladimir Tarasenko, one of the NHL's best shooters, enters the game scorching hot with seven goals in his last nine contests. This could be a rough night.
2) Thanks to additions like Taylor Hall and P.A. Parenteau the Devils have made the most of their chances this season. They'll need that to be the case again tonight because they probably won't get many. St. Louis is 2nd in the NHL in suppressing chances at 5v5 while the Devils are 30th(!) in generating them on a per 60-minute basis.
3) With the way the defense has been playing Keith Kinkaid figures to see a lot of rubber tonight, especially playing behind a tired team. He'll need to be on his game for the Devils to have a shot. I doubt they have a chance if it turns into a track meet.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 7:30 pm eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and FS-MW.
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