quote-tweeted this with an eyes emoji<\/a>. This implies to me that the Devils are expecting some big names back, and sure enough, yesterday we got a little clarity on what Keefe was referencing:<\/p>\nMeier has missed some time recently to attend to a personal matter with his family. We still don\u2019t know exactly what it was, but considering it\u2019s a private matter, that\u2019s fine with me. I\u2019m very happy to see that Meier has taken care of whatever he needed to take care of, here\u2019s hoping him and his family are doing alright. And as far as what it means for the on-ice product, it\u2019s obviously huge. Meier has been having a bit of an up and down campaign, but it\u2019s mostly been up. I would argue this has been his best season as a Devil, and with the team struggling as much as it has been to produce offense, it\u2019ll be so nice to welcome him back to the lineup.<\/p>\n
But remember, Keefe said he expects \u201cbodies\u201d back. Plural. And again, the Devils\u2019 Twitter account treating this like some juicy news implies to me that the returning players are big names. So aside from Meier, could this mean Jack Hughes? It\u2019s possible, as his original timeline wouldn\u2019t be that far off from today. Not to mention there\u2019s been smoke around him returning soon. Needless to say, getting Meier AND Hughes back on the same day would be game-changing. I just hope that if it is Hughes, they aren\u2019t rushing him back. There are only two games until the Christmas break after all, so while every game without Hughes is a frustrating one, I\u2019d be fine with giving him just a little bit more time if he needs it.<\/p>\n
But a Hughes return is just speculation right now. We\u2019ll have to wait and see who else, if anybody, gets back on the ice for New Jersey prior to tonight\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
The Devils gave up another power play goal on Friday, going 2-for-3 overall on the kill. Their own power play went 1-for-5, which I suppose isn\u2019t bad, but it\u2019s not good either. This was just a continuation of a huge issue that has plagued this team for a while now.<\/p>\n
Special teams are absolutely destroying the Devils. In the month of December, New Jersey\u2019s power play is converting at a dismal 14.2% clip, while their penalty kill is at a shocking 53.8% success rate. We\u2019ve talked about a lot of issues surrounding the Devils lately, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019re talking enough about how much the special teams failures have torpedoed this team. Those rates above are completely unacceptable, and while it makes sense that results would drop off when key players like Jack Hughes and Brett Pesce get injured, it should not be even close to this bad.<\/p>\n
I will be an optimist for a second and say that these rates are clearly unsustainable. There is no universe in which the Devils only kill of half of their penalties the rest of the season. Likewise, the power play will not be this anemic for long. The results should get better if only through sheer dumb luck, and once the team gets closer to something resembling fully healthy, we should hopefully see elite special teams units (or close to it) like we did last season.<\/p>\n
All that being said, the special teams failures need to stop. Now. Not when Hughes gets back. Not when Johnny Kovacevic gets back. Now. Their status as a playoff (and hopefully championship) contender depends on it.<\/p>\n
For the first time since a modest three-game winning streak that wrapped around Thanksgiving (and that, fittingly, included the Sabres as the last win of that streak), the Devils have won multiple games in a row. Yes, New Jersey went almost an entire month without clearing the hilariously low bar of winning a game and then winning the next game. But credit where it\u2019s due: the Devils went out to Vegas and beat a challenging (if slightly overrated) Golden Knights squad, then topped a scrappy and talented Mammoth side.<\/p>\n
Now they return to the east coast and battle a team far less imposing in the Sabres. Buffalo might not be a complete pushover (we\u2019ll get to that momentarily), but I don\u2019t think anyone would deny that Vegas is a better team than Buffalo. Most people would probably say Utah is a superior group as well. All of that to say, New Jersey should absolutely go out and beat Buffalo today. With the team back home, Buffalo having played last night (and going all the way to a shootout), and the Devils finding ways to win against tough squads like Vegas and Utah, this feels like a game New Jersey should get two points out of. Throw in the return of Meier and possibly more reinforcements, and this is a game that I will be very disappointed with anything less than a win.<\/p>\n
Good News\/Bad News For Buffalo<\/p>\n
With their shootout victory last night, the Sabres have now won five straight games. They are the hottest team in the Eastern Conference, and while they\u2019re still on the outside looking in as far as the playoff picture goes, just one more good week could vault them into the top eight in the conference. For as woebegone as the organization is, New Jersey cannot take Buffalo lightly, or the Sabres will make it six in a row.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the good news. The bad news? Well, frankly the Sabres have been lucky to win one of their last five games, let alone all of them. According to Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, since their winning streak began on December 9th, Buffalo has been one of the worst play-driving teams in the NHL (all numbers 5-on-5):<\/p>\nScoring Chances For%: 42.78<\/p>\n
High Danger Corsi For%: 41.67<\/p>\n
Expected Goals For%: 42.51<\/p>\n
Only one time over their five-game bender have they finished with an xGF% north of breakeven: December 14th at Seattle. And even that was only barely above that mark at 50.68%. The Sabres have been finding ways to win, mostly through their own goaltending getting hot or the other team\u2019s goaltending imploding, but I think it\u2019s fair to say they\u2019ve been winning in spite of their process, not because of it.<\/p>\n
This does not mean that New Jersey can take Buffalo lightly. But it does mean that while the Sabres come in raging hot, they are more vulnerable than they currently appear.<\/p>\n
So who should the Devils be watching out for this evening? The usual suspects. Tage Thompson leads the team in goals (18) and points (31). Alex Tuch is next with 29 points, and Rasmus Dahlin continues to be a machine with 27 points of his own. Both Thompson and Dahlin scored goals yesterday, so watch out for them continuing their hot streaks.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in net, Alex Lyon got the call last night, making 32 saves on 34 shots and standing tall in the shootout. So expect to see Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen between the pipes this evening. UPL has struggled this season, going 9-4-5 with an .884 save percentage. If the Devils get their fair share of shots on net in this game, they should hit paydirt with some regularity assuming Luukonen\u2019s season-long form holds.<\/p>\n
Expect much the same this evening.<\/p>\n
What do you make of tonight\u2019s game? How happy are you to see Timo Meier back? Do you actually anticipate anyone else returning, or do you think that\u2019s just a bit of a smokescreen from Keefe? What do you expect out of Buffalo? As always, thanks for reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (20-14-1) vs. Buffalo Sabres (16-14-4) The Broadcast: MSGSN, Devils Radio Network On Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[124633,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-362853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-devils-game-previews","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}