After starting their Canadian road trip with a loss to the Calgary Flames, the New Jersey Devils looked to avoid dropping their second in a row as they paid a visit to Edmonton, Alberta for the first of a two-game season series with the Oiler.
By Patrick Comia
It was going to be an interesting to see how the Devils would respond after what seemed like forever since they last lost.
Ever since going winless in their first four games of the season, New Jersey has taken the hockey world by surprise with their success.
However, after Tuesday’s loss, would the Devils regroup and get back to playing their brand of hockey: hard working, remaining aggressive with and without the puck.
Well, it didn’t start out ideal. The sting from their loss against the Flames may have carried over to tonight.
The Devils went down early by a goal, thanks to the combination of two of Edmonton’s hottest players right now, Leon Draisaitl and Taylor Hall. The puck found it’s way under the pads of Keith Kincaid, whom was getting his fourth start of the season.
However, the Devils started getting comfortable after feeling out the young Oilers team.
The team had two outstanding penalty kill opportunities in the first. They did not allow Edmonton to set up in the offensive zone and remained vigilant on getting tot he puck, and even had a near short-handed goal off the stick of Adam Henrique, who got a nice feed from Lee Stempniak after dancing around the Oilers defense.
A scary moment for the Devils was when Adam Larsson was checked into the boards from Oilers forward Benoit Pouliot, from behind. After the hit, the Swedish defenseman was seen out of sorts, and soon left to the locker room, suffering a cut to his facial area.
Adam Larsson returns to the bench after taking a tough hit into the boards. #HesAHockeyPlayer
— New Jersey Devils (@NHLDevils) November 21, 2015
Fortunately, he was seen returning to the bench, much to the delight of his teammates who gave Larsson stick tap salutes.
New Jersey was able to come up with an equalizer on the power play. The Devils Kyle Palmieri took matters into his own hands skated around the Oilers, who whipped a wrist shot that got past Oilers goalie Anders Nilsson.
?Palms? goes top shelf where momma hides the cookies. #NJDvsEDM pic.twitter.com/PqRLvsY3AF
— New Jersey Devils (@NHLDevils) November 21, 2015
That made it four straight games the Devils have scored a power play goal.
However, Edmonton would get the goal back, to go up by one again. Oscar Klefbom buried a a nice cross-ice pass from Teddy Purcell, who got Kincaid out of position by faking like he was going to shoot.
The Devils would find that balloon to three goals, as Edmonton would score three in the final 20 minutes of regulation.
It was New Jersey’s first back-to-back losses since last month. The team had no answer for the Oilers, not spending enough time in Edmonton’s defensive zone.
The Devils will conclude their Candian road trip on Sunday as they visit Vancouver, and face the Canucks whom they defeated back on November 8th at the Prudential Center.
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