Prior to the four-game road trip, Taylor Hall said it would need to be a good one if the New Jersey Devils were going to stay in the playoff race.
So far it has been just that as the Devils have picked up five of a possible six points thus far.
Tonight the task gets tougher, though, as the Devils are in Minnesota to take on a Wild team that is 17-1-1(!!) in their last 19 games. The Devils are 6-10-3 over that same period so, though they've been playing better of late, the two sides are on completely different levels right now.
Also working in Minnesota's favor is home ice advantage. They have won 14 times in 18 tries (77%) in their own building while the Devils have just eight wins in 26 games (30.7%) away from the Prudential Center.
This is pretty much as tough of a situation as the Devils could find themselves in so it'll be interesting to see how they respond.
Here are the expected line combinations for New Jersey:
Taylor Hall - Adam Henrique - P.A. Parenteau Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri Pavel Zacha - Jacob Josefson - Beau Bennett Miles Wood - Blake Coleman/Vern Fiddler - Devante Smith-Pelly
Kyle Quincey - Damon Severson Jon Merrill - Ben Lovejoy Karl Stollery - Steve Santini
Cory Schneider
And the expected lines for the Wild (via dailyfaceoff.com):
Zach Parise - Eric Staal - Charlie Coyle Jason Zucker - Mikko Koivu - Mikael Granlund Nino Niederreiter - Erik Haula - Jason Pominville Chris Stewart - Tyler Graovac - Jordan Schroeder
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon Jonas Brodin - Christian Folin Marco Scandella - Mathew Dumba
Devan Dubnyk
A few notes:
1) Staal leads the Wild in scoring this season, but it may be the Zucker - Koivu - Granlund unit that the Devils need to worry most about. In 282 minutes together at 5v5 they have a plus-16 goal differential(!) and have been laying waste to the opposition.
2) A couple games ago the Devils made alterations to the way they play on the power play. They want all their players positioned so they can accept pucks on their forehand and be in shooting positions. They also have Hall at the point so he has some space to skate towards the net and shoot with momentum.
It'll be interesting to see how this new strategy works against one of the league's best penalty kills (the Wild are killing off 85% on the year).
3) Schneider has a .940 save percentage in seven starts since the turn of the calendar. The Devils will likely be overmatched by the Wild tonight, which means Schneider will have to be on his game once again.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 8:00 eastern and can be seen on MSG+, FS-N and FS-WI
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