The preseason is coming to a close, and the New Jersey Devils are trying to round themselves into regular season form. To that end, they iced the vast majority of what should be their opening day lineup tonight, and that lineup skated away with a 3-1 victory over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
Jacob Markstrom played the full game and turned in a brilliant performance. Granted, the Rangers were not exactly peppering him with tons of grade-A chances, but he still did his job. 19 saves on 20 shots is impressive no matter what shot quality a goalie is dealing with. To my admittedly amateur eye, he looked poised and calm when he needed to be, and quick and decisive when he needed to be.<\/p>\n
And about that one goal he gave up\u2026<\/p>\n
So yeah, aside from one wild fluke of an own goal, Markstrom looked strong in net tonight.<\/p>\n
As for the skaters, you wouldn\u2019t have guessed it based on that \u201chighlight\u201d, but Simon Nemec actually played a really good game. According to Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, in 20:34 of 5-on-5 time (he actually led the team in total ice time with 23:13), he posted an Expected Goals For% of 73.37%. That mark was second on the team behind only Dawson Mercer\u2019s 74.65%. He also added an assist on the power play, so overall it was a terrific game for Nemec\u2026if you can forgive the Severson-esque gaffe.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, I thought the fourth line looked pretty good too, especially Paul Cotter. He scored the opening goal of the game off a killer pass from Arseny Gritsyuk (side note: The NHL\u2019s official website lists Gritsyuk\u2019s first name as being spelled with a \u201cy\u201d at the end, so I\u2019m going with that from now on). But the real hero of that goal was Rangers Oddity Matt Rempe:<\/p>\n I have no clue what Rempe thought he was doing there. Apparently if there\u2019s not a skull in the immediate vicinity for him to bury his elbow into, his brain short circuits and he doesn\u2019t know what to do with himself. Either way, It was a pretty goal, and Gritsyuk continues to impress.<\/p>\n At the other side of the lineup, the big guns didn\u2019t have a particularly great game. The Jesper Bratt-Jack Hughes-Evgenii Dadonov line decisively lost the puck possession battle this evening, with only one shot on goal (Hughes) between the three of them. The Hischier line fared better, with Mercer and Timo Meier posting 5-on-5 xGF%\u2018s in the 70\u2019s (Hischier was a little under breakeven though), and Mercer icing the game with an empty-net goal in the dying breaths of the game. Hischier had an assist on that play, so he got on the scoresheet as well.<\/p>\n The third line didn\u2019t do a whole lot at 5-on-5 today, though Cody Glass and Connor Brown were both above 50% in xGF%. Palat wasn\u2019t, but he did have a big power play goal in the third period off a nice redirection in front:<\/p>\n So all in all, it wasn\u2019t the cleanest or most dominant game from the Devils, but they did get a win. A lot of the depth players played fairly well, and while the top of the lineup didn\u2019t light the Rangers up, their performance in a preseason game is the last thing I\u2019m worried about. The most important thing for them is getting out of the game healthy, which sadly wasn\u2019t the case for everyone. We\u2019ll get to that momentarily.<\/p>\n One more preseason game to go.<\/p>\n