Five notes from New Jersey vs Colorado:
1) The Devils didn't play their best game, but I thought it was a pretty nice response following a dud of a showing against Florida earlier in the week. Colorado has been really good at home this season and, in particular, their stars have feasted given favorable matchups. That wasn't the case last night. Colorado did get the better of the chances but the reality is there simply weren't many. It was a pretty tight, low-event game – two chances was enough to tie for the game-high at 5v5! – which I'm sure the Devils were quite content with. If they don't give up many quality looks, it's pretty easy for Cory Schneider to lock it down and earn them at least a point.
2) Sticking with Schneider, he has really settled in and found his old form. He has posted a .917 save percentage or better in seven of his last eight starts and now owns a .920SV% on the year, which is just a hair below his career average of .922. A big key for the Devils to have a successful season was Schneider getting back on track and so far he's done just that.
3) John Hynes and the coaching staff tossed Sami Vatanen right in the fire last night. Despite having practiced zero (0) times with the team, they put him on the top pairing at even-strength, played him on both special teams units, and gave him a team-leading 23:13 of ice. I thought he handled it pretty well as he looked comfortable and, one rush by J.T. Compher aside, didn't really get into any trouble throughout. The one thing I will say is that if he's being used against top competition and being given a lot of defensive zone starts (only Andy Greene had more at 5v5), it will take away from his offensive game. It's hard to help generate chances, and use his big shot, when he is getting defensive zone assignments against players like Nathan MacKinnon.
4) There was a clear big three on defense with Vatanen (23:13), Greene (21:29), and Severson (20:35) logging well over 20 minutes while John Moore was the only other defender to play more than 17. Those are most certainly the guys the coaching staff should be riding so I was pretty happy to see that.
5) Pavel Zacha's Big Chanceâ„¢ in the top-6 didn't turn out to be much of one. He generated zero shots, zero chances, and ended up playing less than all but Miles Wood at even-strength. He's really in a funk right now and, with the Devils being competitive, they can't really spoonfeed him minutes and wait for him to get out of it. Not a great situation.
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