The New Jersey Devils opened a tough four-game road trip in Dallas on Tuesday night with their fifth consecutive win, and third such on the road.
Despite playing without two of their top players, Taylor Hall and Mike Cammalleri, the Devils managed to squeeze out a 2-1 overtime victory thanks to an Adam Henrique tap in.
The Good
- Stop me if you've heard this before: Damon Severson was one of the best players on the ice. He consistently added another layer of offense with smart pinches (like the one he scored on) and more than held his own on the defensive side of the puck despite playing a good chunk of his 5v5 minutes against either Tyler Seguin or Jamie Benn.
He led all players with a game score of 1.72.
- The P.A. Parenteau - Travis Zajac - Beau Bennett unit was dominant from start to finish. With that trio on the ice the Devils out attempted the Stars 26-13, out shot them 12-7 and out chanced them 9-5. They attacked with speed and were always back deep in the defensive zone to help transition from defense to offense. Taylor Hall will take his spot back when he returns but I thought Bennett in particular was fantastic. He did everything but score.
- John Hynes has done a nice job of picking his spots for heavy usage with Pavel Zacha rather than throwing him to the wolves. That said, Hynes has leaned on Zacha in some key situations throughout the year and he did again vs the Stars. With ~3:45 to go in a tie game Hynes sent Zacha over the boards for a shift on the penalty kill. That says a lot about how Hynes views the 19-year-old.
- Kyle Palmieri and Adam Henrique have recorded points in consecutive games for just the second time this season. Are they finally turning a corner?
- The ovation Dallas Stars fans gave Vern Fiddler was just awesome. Even Hynes gave Fiddler an applause from behind the bench.
A warm welcome back for Fidds in Dallas. #Respect #NJDvsDAL pic.twitter.com/NWeVq9jYuh
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) November 16, 2016
The Bad
- John Moore and Kyle Quincey actually managed to stay above ground in terms of possession last night but they were still the Devils' worst pairing. There weren't too many stand out shifts (in a negative way) but they did team up to hand Dallas their first and only goal of the game.
Hey, Antoine Roussel is on a seven game point streak. pic.twitter.com/nuyhkjoW18
— #HockeyFightsCancer (@NHL) November 16, 2016
I still can't understand why Moore gave Quincey a cross-ice pass when the latter was covered but Quincey certainly didn't help the cause with how he handled it.
- The 4th line was caved in pretty good. They spent a lot of time chasing play in their own zone and were really the only Devils' line, or defense pairing, to do so.
- Yohann Auvitu was very good in possession once again but logged just over 13 minutes. There will be some hiccups defensively but the good definitely outweighs the bad so I'd like to see him play more.
Stat Of The Game
Zajac recorded six shots on goal for the first time since March of the 2013-14 season.