The New Jersey Devils are in Detroit tonight looking to head into the Christmas break on a positive note with a win over the Red Wings.
Entering tonight's game the Devils have lost three straight games and are hoping they can avoid dropping their fourth in a row; something they haven't done since the first four games of the season.
The Devils have been very inconsistent over the last month or so and quality games have come few and far between. For a while the Devils continued to pile up the points despite mediocre play and it's caught up to them of late.
They've been out-chanced in seven of their last nine games and out-shot in eight of their last 10 games. It should come as no surprise that the Devils have just four wins in that span.
The good news for the Devils is one of their quality outings over the last 10 came against the Red Wings.
It won't be easy to best the Wings again, though, as they've been very good at home this season and have managed at least a point in 15 of their last 16(!) games.
LINEUPS Cammalleri - Henrique - Stempniak Tlusty - Zajac - Palmieri Kalinin - Josefson - Kennedy Ruutu - Gionta - Tootoo
Greene - Larsson Moore - Severson Merrill - Schlemko
Schneider
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Larkin - Zetterberg - Abdelkader Helm - Datsyuk - Richards Nyquist - Sheahan - Tatar Andersson - Glendening - Jurco
Kronwall - Green DeKeyser - Kindl Smith - Marchenko
Mrazek
NOTES 1) In 75 minutes of 5 v 5 time the Red Wings have generated just 42% of the scoring chances and 47% of the shot attempts with the Helm - Datsyuk - Richards line on the ice. It's not a large sample size but in their short time together they haven't been great. The Devils should put them to the test against the Cammalleri - Henrique - Stempniak unit.
2) The Devils' offense hasn't been very good of late in the way of a) creating chances and; b) scoring goals.
Their lone goal last time out came on a play where Andy Greene jumped into the rush giving the Devils another layer of offense. Given how mobile their back end is I think they'd be smart to activate a little more often. 3) As mentioned above the Devils have been out chanced in seven of their last nine games. If that trend continues Cory Schneider will have to be on his game.
The game is at 7:30 eastern and can be seen on MSG+ and FS-D+.
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