Nightmare First Period Dooms New Jersey Devils In 3-0 Loss To St. Louis Blues

The misery started almost instantaneously tonight:

You might have noticed Pavel Buchnevich tripping Nico Hischier in the above clip. It’s hard to miss after all. But somehow, someway, the officials did miss it, and it led directly to a Robert Thomas goal nine seconds into the game.

A few minutes after the Blues caught that monstrous break, the Devils were called for a penalty themselves. A Too Many Men call that Sheldon Keefe and the entire MSG broadcast crew could not believe:

I can’t say I disagree.

New Jersey did manage to kill off the “penalty”, but in the seconds immediately after it expired, Dylan Holloway scored on a play that Brett Pesce seemed to be perturbed by. See if you can spot why:

At the very end of the clip, the Blues’ color commentator remarks that there were “No Devils in sight”. I wonder why that might be!

And it turns out, that hole was too deep to climb out of for New Jersey. Holloway added another goal later in the first period, this time featuring no egregious display of officiating I could find, and the Devils would lose by that 3-0 final score.

I almost always try to avoid centering the attention on the officials. Officiating is a thankless job, and I don’t really want to pile on the folks in stripes. In every game, in every sport, bad calls happen. Sometimes one team benefits more from bad calls than the other, but hardly ever to the point where a game’s outcome is significantly impacted by it. But I’m sorry, tonight was the very, very, very rare exception. The officials tonight had a remarkably bad first period, and their calls and non-calls significantly impacted the outcome of the game.

However, notice I use the phrase “significantly impacted” and not “decided” when referring to the outcome. In addition to New Jersey being on the receiving end of some hilariously bad calls, the Devils also just played terribly in the first 20 minutes. They couldn’t string together more than two consecutive passes, they let the Blues own the puck all period, they failed to pick each other up defensively, and Jacob Markstrom’s rebound control on the third goal of the period was atrocious. In fact, Markstrom really should have saved one or two of the goals he allowed in the first.

I want to make it very clear: The officials made a significant impact on tonight’s game in favor of the Blues, but the Devils also played a terrible first period, and it turned into the perfect storm that led to this evening’s frustrating outcome. As much blame as I or anyone else wants to ascribe to the officials, plenty of blame needs to be laid at the feet of the Devils themselves.

If you look at the stats from the second period on, you will find that New Jersey absolutely steamrolled St. Louis. The Devils outshot the Blues 11-1 in the second period, and according to Natural Stat Trick they compiled a 5-on-5 Expected Goals For% of just over 98%. The third period was a little more even, but still decisively in the favor of New Jersey. But this is one of those games where the advanced stats just don’t capture the full picture. St. Louis was perfectly content to stop attacking after the first 20 minutes tonight. They parked the bus to perfection, clogging the neutral zone and the middle of the ice, stifling the Devils’ attack for the final 40 minutes of the contest. New Jersey dominated puck possession in the last two periods tonight, but they never truly threatened to climb back into the contest. They did manage to produce some high danger chances, but not nearly enough. And no matter what they threw at Jordan Binnington, he answered the call every time.

In the end, the Devils played a terrible first period, a good-but-not-good-enough second and third period, and with some “help” from the officials, they allowed St. Louis to score thrice in a first period that sunk New Jersey. There was almost nothing to cheer for tonight.

The Game Stats: The NHL.com Game Summary | The NHL.com Event Summary | The NHL.com Play by Play Log | The NHL.com Shot Summary | The Natural Stat Trick Game Stats

The Game Highlights: Courtesy of NHL.com

The Meier-Less Lineup

I didn’t even mention Timo Meier being out of the lineup due to suspension tonight. I’ve done enough complaining for one recap, so I won’t get back on my soapbox and go off on what I think of the suspension. Instead I’ll focus on what it meant for the lineup Sheldon Keefe deployed without his highest-paid forward.

Keefe decided to move Paul Cotter up to the Hischier line, and insert Nolan Foote into Cotter’s spot on the third line, thus leaving the Jack Hughes and Justin Dowling lines intact. Aside from maybe moving Tomas Tatar up to play with Hischier, I think this was probably the best option. But the problem to me was…that was the best option. Cotter has played way above expectations so far, but he definitely does not belong in the top-6 of a team with championship aspirations.

This puts front and center the fact that the Devils are pretty thin as far as impact forwards go. The impact forwards they do have, namely Hischier, Hughes, Meier, and Jesper Bratt, are an outstanding quartet that can go toe-to-toe with anyone else’s top-4. But there’s a significant drop-off after that. Players like Cotter, Ondrej Palat, Stefan Noesen, and Dawson Mercer are very nice complimentary players, but they can’t offer the offensive firepower those other four can, so when even one of them is out of the lineup it presents a problem for New Jersey.

After another shutout loss (more on that momentarily) it’s clear the Devils could use some help among the forward ranks. The trade deadline is a long ways away, but it’s never too early to start scouring the trade market for options. Just ask Adam Henrique and Sami Vatanen in 2017. Who might be available? That’s more difficult to say. Old friend Taylor Hall seems to be on the block in Chicago, and with only one year left on his current contract it doesn’t seem like it would take that much to pry him away. But given how tight New Jersey is to the salary cap, I’m not sure how feasible a reunion is.

But other than Hall, I don’t know who might be a viable option. But it’s clear the Devils could use some reinforcements.

Another Goose Egg

After a four-game losing streak from October 19-25, the Devils entered this evening’s contest with a record of 10-3-0 over their last 13 games. Make it 10-4-0, which is still a fantastic winning percentage, but the problem is that all four of those losses have been shutouts. That’s as many as all of last season. That’s four more than their incredible 2022-23 campaign when they were never blanked all season long. The offense not showing up is starting to become a major problem.

As I mentioned in the previous section, this just goes to show the Devils could use some more firepower in the top- or middle-6. New Jersey has been getting strong results thus far because while their offense has regressed a bit (though not by a crazy amount), the defense has taken a huge step forward. If the price of a much improved defense is a little hit on offense, so be it. But New Jersey should still be looking to improve offensively at some point.

The Journey Continues

I’ve written about this multiple times before, and I will continue to write about it until the drought ends. New Jersey came into this game with a three-game winning streak. They had an opportunity to win four or more games for the first time since January of 2023 (a five-game winning streak). And once again, they failed.

At this point I’m starting the think the Devils are cursed. It’s not like I’m asking for another 13-game heater like we saw early in 2022-23. A four-game winning streak is a very modest goal, but one that has somehow eluded New Jersey for almost two calendar years now.

The hunt goes on.

Milestones

We’ll end with some good vibes. Jacob Markstrom was honored before today’s game for his 500th career game, a milestone he reached against Carolina last week.

It was a lovely tribute video, and a lovely on-ice ceremony. Congratulations to Markstrom and his family.

Meanwhile, Luke Hughes played his 100th career game this evening. Congratulations to the youngest Hughes brother. Here’s to many, many more successful games in a Devils sweater.

Next Time Out

The Devils play on Black Friday afternoon in Detroit against the Red Wings. Puck drop is slated for 3:00pm.

Your Take

What did you make of tonight’s game? Are you as frustrated at the officials as I am? Are you also not letting the Devils off the hook for how terribly they played in the first period? Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. See you on the other side of the holiday!