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Though the New Jersey Devils managed their fifth win in 21 tries on Thursday night, they'll be looking for a much better performance against the Washington Capitals tonight.
Despite the end result, the Devils did not play well in Washington. Far from it. They were outshot by 17 and out-chanced by 31(!) in their 2-1 shootout win. If it weren't for a herculean effort from Keith Kinkaid, the Devils would have been on the wrong side of a lopsided blowout. Should they put forth a repeat performance that will almost certainly be the case.
While there is reason to expect a better effort tonight -- it's hard to be much worse, and the Devils have won a lot of games at home -- it still may not be enough.
Washington is one of the most talented teams in the league and their underlying numbers range from very good to great in almost every category. Not only that, they aren't a team that loses very often and they've dropped two in a row. They'll have extra motivation to get back on track and try to keep pace with the rest of the Metropolitan teams that continue to win on a nightly basis.
Add in the fact the Devils will once again be without their best player in Taylor Hall and it certainly isn't too hard to envision a scenario where they lose for the 17th time in 22 games.
We'll see if that's how it plays out.
Here are the expected line combinations for New Jersey:
Note: Luke Gazdic has been recalled and will likely draw in.
Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri
Beau Bennett - Adam Henrique - P.A. Parenteau
Miles Wood - Jacob Josefson - Nick Lappin
Luke Gazdic - Sergey Kalinin - Devante Smith-Pelly
Andy Greene - Damon Severson
John Moore - Ben Lovejoy
Jon Merrill - Kyle Quincey
Cory Schneider/Keith Kinkaid
And the expected lines for the Capitals (via dailyfaceoff.com):
Alex Ovechkin - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Justin Williams
Marcus Johansson - Nicklas Backstrom - T.J. Oshie
Jakub Vrana - Lars Eller - Andre Burakovsky
Daniel Winnik - Jay Beagle - Tom Wilson
Karl Alzner - John Carlson
Dmitri Orlov - Matt Niskanen
Brooks Orpik - Nate Schmidt
Braden Holtby
A couple notes:
1) The Devils are last in the NHL in 5v5 shot attempts/60 and 29th in 5v5 scoring chances/60 while the Caps are one of the best defensive teams in the league. As was the case last time out, don't expect the Devils to muster up much offense at full-strength; especially without Taylor Hall.
2) Parenteau hit a rough patch a few weeks ago, but he has four points in his last four and is quietly on pace for 24 goals over an 82-game basis. He'll definitely have some value at the deadline.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 1:00 pm eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and CSN-DC.
Happy New Year!
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