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The New Jersey Devils will attempt to snap out of a six-game losing streak tonight when they take on the New York Islanders.
They figure to have a good chance of doing so despite playing on the road against an Islanders team that has won three consecutive games.
The Isles are missing a few key players – most notably Josh Bailey, Andrew Ladd, and Johnny Boychuk – and it has shown as they've been out-played by wide margins of late.
Last night, for example, they were outshot 56-24 by Montreal and on their heels for the majority of the game. Score effects played a part, no doubt, but you're pretty lucky anytime you get outshot by 32 and win a hockey game.
The Islanders allowed 39 shots to the Rangers in the game prior, and 46 to the Devils before that, so it's clear they can't defend a lick right now. Normally, they don't get goaltending, either.
I think the Devils will come out hungry, ready to play, and take advantage of that. They have to.
Here are the projected lineups:
New Jersey
Taylor Hall - Nico Hischier - Jesper Bratt
Marcus Johansson - Travis Zajac - Drew Stafford
Miles Wood - Pavel Zacha - Kyle Palmieri
Brian Gibbons - Brian Boyle - Stefan Noesen
Andy Greene - Sami Vatanen
John Moore - Damon Severson
Will Butcher - Ben Lovejoy
Cory Schneider
New York (via DailyFaceoff.com)
Anders Lee - John Tavares - Alan Quine
Anthony Beauvillier - Mathew Barzal - Jordan Eberle
Michael Dal Colle - Brock Nelson - Shane Prince
Jason Chimera - Tanner Fritz - Cal Clutterbuck
Nick Leddy - Scott Mayfield
Adam Pelech - Sebastian Aho
Tomas Hickey - Ryan Pulock
Jaroslav Halak
What to watch for:
1) Barzal has 10 points in his last three games and is tied for 4th in 5v5 scoring – behind only Nikita Kucherov, Connor McDavid, and Nathan MacKinnon. He's as electric, and dynamic, as any player in the league right now and is pretty much unstoppable when he has any space to work with so Devils forwards need to make sure they get on their horse and provide serious backside pressure to try and box him in.
2) Schneider has allowed four goals or more and posted a sub .900 save percentage in five consecutive starts. It doesn't matter how the Devils play if Schneider provides goaltending like that so he needs to take his game up a few notches – especially against a high-powered offensive team against the Islanders.
3) On Monday
I mentioned how Zacha, for the second consecutive year, ranks 1st on the Devils in shot and chance suppression while killing penalties. The sample size isn't overly large, but there's enough evidence to suggest it's worth giving him a bigger role and seeing how he can handle it. That appears to be the plan as Zacha was among six forwards, one of whom will be scratched (Blake Coleman), working on penalty killing in practice yesterday.
4) I like the decision to shift Kyle Palmieri down a line and balance out the top-9. I think it makes the Devils tougher to match up against and could cause serious problems for shallow and/or banged up teams like the Islanders. Wood ranks 4th on the Devils in 5v5 scoring, Palmieri shoots a lot, and Zacha's been pretty solid over the last few weeks so I think they could feast on easier competition.
5) John Hynes has reverted back to the Greene - Vatanen pairing in hopes of finding something that sticks. They didn't fare well when Vatanen first came over but perhaps now that he's settled in, adjusted to systematic changes, etc. the results could be better. They better be because this pairing will see a lot of Tavares and/or Barzal.
Puck drop is just after 7:00 p.m. Eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and MSG+2.
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