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After blowing a 3rd period lead en route to a regulation loss in Boston, the New Jersey Devils are back on home soil where they picked up their only win of the season to date.
Tonight they'll go up against a Minnesota Wild team that is off to a strong start, at least standings wise, under new head coach Bruce Boudreau.
The Wild own a 3-1-0 record, although they lost their only game away from home. They also haven't necessarily played as well as their record would indicate.
The sample size is small, obviously, but the Wild are controlling just 46% of the shot attempts and 49% of the shots at full-strength. For comparison sake the Devils, who have played three of four on the road and three of four vs 2015-16 playoff teams, are controlling 45.7% of the shot attempts and 47.8% of the shots.
In other words the two teams have played at similar levels despite one team winning three of four and the other losing three of four to date.
It'll be interesting to see which way this one goes.
Here is a look at the lineup the Devils are expected to go with:
Taylor Hall - Adam Henrique - Kyle Palmieri
Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Blake Speers
Beau Bennett - Pavel Zacha - P.A. Parenteau
Sergei Kalinin - Vern Fiddler - Devante Smith-Pelly
Andy Greene - Damon Severson
John Moore - Ben Lovejoy
Yohann Auvitu - Kyle Quincey
Cory Schneider
And who they'll go up against:
Zach Parise - Eric Staal - Charlie Coyle
Mikael Granlund - Mikko Koivu - Jason Pominville
Jason Zucker - Erik Haula - Teemu Pulkkinen
Nino Niederreiter - Zac Dalpe - Chris Stewart
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Marco Scandella - Jonas Brodin
Mike Reilly - Christian Folin
Devan Dubnyk
A few notes:
1) After sitting out a couple games as a healthy scratch, Speers is not only getting back into the lineup but he's getting a shot in the top-6. He didn't play well in his first couple games but perhaps a few practices and some time to sit down and watch will help his cause. He is essentially on a nine-game tryout so if he wants to stick he's going to have to start performing better, especially when he gets opportunities like this.
2) The Devils should use last change to their advantage and keep the Moore - Lovejoy pairing away from Minnesota's top two lines as much as possible. They have been getting caved in this season.
3) Schneider has been fantastic to date and will need to continue being so until the Devils' offense gets going. They have scored just six goals in four games so far. Schneider has little margin for error.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 7 pm eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and FS-North.
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