The New Jersey Devils fail with a 6-5 defeat against the Washington Capitals

A unique feature of the New Jersey Devils’ season was that they had not lost a game in which they scored a goal since October 25, a 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Islanders until tonight. The four defeats they suffered during this period were all narrow defeats. That roughly month-long streak ended tonight when the Devils lost 6-4 to the Washington Capitals in a sloppy, uneven game.

We’ve lamented New Jersey’s slow starts in recent games. I’m sorry to report that tonight was another slow start. The Devils allowed the other team to score first for the seventh straight game. That marker from Andrew Mangiapane was part of an overall dismal first period for the Devils, who were outscored 17-5 in the first 20 minutes. According to Natural Stat Trick, New Jersey posted a 5-on-5 expected rate of 17.43%, a shockingly low number. Nico Hischier scored against the run of play to bring his team into halftime tied, but the only reason Washington didn’t go into the locker room down by a goal or two was because Jake Allen himself had a great first half.

The second half went a little better and the Devils even took the lead with a goal from Justin Dowling. Brett Pesce produced the shot that led to tip-in, which was his first point as a Devil. Congratulations to him.

From then on, however, the Devils allowed three power play goals in a row. Yes, you read that correctly. New Jersey started the evening with the best power play in the entire league, but in the second period it was the Capitals who benefited from a Devils save in the penalty area. Connor McMichael scored on a 4-on-3 play in which Johnathan Kovacevic broke his stick and a lucky dive led to McMichael’s slam dunk goal. Jakob Chychrun fired a laser past Allen off the post and into the ensuing 5-on-4. Rasmus Sandin found a puck in a mad scramble when no one else could and fired it home with a shot that defeated New Jersey 4-2. There we finally made our way to the second break.

But if nothing else, this Devils team has shown that they are hard to kill. They are the comeback kids, and one night after overcoming a two-goal deficit, they overcame another. Stefan Noesen took advantage of a great Jack Hughes push on a power play to cut the deficit to one. Moments later, Ondrej Palat stole a puck in the Capitals’ zone at even strength, fed Hughes, who fired a shot into the net, and it shot off Jesper Bratt’s skate and into the goal. And all within the first five minutes of the quarter. And the goals didn’t come against the run of play like Hischier did in the first frame. New Jersey found its footing and fought more evenly against the Capitals in the second period (outside of the shootout, of course). This continued in the third half and they scored two goals to compensate for their problems.

But unfortunately the Capitals struck twice in quick succession towards the end of regular time. With just over six minutes left, Taylor Raddysh deflected a shot to give Washington the lead. Then, 10 seconds later (yes, really), Jake Allen lost the puck behind his own net, handed it off to the Capitals, and Pierre-Luc Dubois scored the luckiest goal of his life, putting Washington ahead 6-4.

Unfortunately, this terrible mistake from Allen would prove to be the deciding factor. When New Jersey was back on the power play very late in the third period, Stefan Noesen earned his second PPG of the game. But the Devils were unable to equalize and lost 6:5.

That was a very frustrating night. The Devils once again failed to start on time, allowing the first goal and losing possession of the puck. The never-ending run to the penalty box in the second period was undoing for New Jersey, especially considering they were the slightly better team at 5-on-5 in the final 40 minutes of the game. I really can’t name anyone and say they played a good game. Allen came closest to me after his amazing first period, but he ended up letting six goals slip past him, including the absolute stunner of the sixth and decisive goal.

Perhaps Noesen deserves credit for his two power play goals. Jack Hughes had a three-point, all-assist night. Timo Meier and Jesper Bratt also had multi-point evenings. But the team finished the game with a 5v5 xGF percentage of about 36% per NST, which sounds about right. The Devils outscored Washington in the final two periods, but not nearly as often as Washington outscored them in the first period. And while I don’t want to use that as an excuse because the Devils weren’t the better team overall, they really seemed to have terrible luck tonight. Bryce Salvador pointed out that just before the first goal, Washington took a penalty on its own team before hitting the ice. Salvador later said that the penalty that Jesper Bratt took against Tom Wilson in the first period was – and I quote – “a terrible decision”. When Sal complains so much, you know there’s something there. Wilson and the Capitals also got away with some pretty bad hits and crosschecks tonight. And of course, puck luck was in Washington’s favor all night long. Again, the Devils didn’t just lose due to bad luck and uneven officiating. But I would like to point out that it would be reasonable to say that luck should change in the next game.

But make no mistake, this was an ugly game. New Jersey has now ended its season series against the Capitals and scored five out of eight possible points, while Washington scored four points themselves. So ultimately the Devils beat the Caps this year. But they laid two eggs against them at home, and although the schedule inexplicably gave us four matchups in the first two months of the season and nothing for the rest, it is very possible that these two teams will end up in a postseason series meet each other. And if that happens, the Devils will have to clean up a lot of what they did against the Capitals this season. Dust yourself off and move on.

The game statistics: The NHL.com Game Recap | The NHL.com Event Summary | The NHL.com Play-by-Play Transcript | The NHL.com Shot Summary | The Natural Stat Trick game statistics

The game highlights: Courtesy of NHL.com

The only ray of hope

Okay, maybe I put it a little too harshly when I said that no one deserves credit for having a “good” game tonight. The only unit you can really point out positively was the Ondrej Palat-Jack Hughes-Jesper Bratt line. Each of these players finished with a 5v5 xGF% in the 60s. As mentioned, Hughes had three assists, Bratt had a goal and an assist, and Palat even got a helper on Bratt’s goal. When nothing else worked for New Jersey, at least the Hughes line won their duel.

On the trail of misery

Two things that made us all angry a season ago were the fact that the Devils allowed the first goal (and generally had poor starts) and the terrible second half results in a row. A lot went wrong in 2023-24, but these two elements were at the top of the list of things that doomed New Jersey.

Today the Devils conceded their first goal in seven consecutive games. To find out the last time New Jersey beat its opponent, you have to look back to November 14th and its 6-2 victory over the Florida Panthers. Miraculously, the Devils are 4-3-0 in those games, so it hasn’t completely buried them. But it’s still a trend that seemed to be a thing of the past until a few weeks ago. Please start scoring first again, Devils.

Meanwhile, thanks to tonight’s loss, New Jersey is 1-3-1 in the second half of back-to-back games this season. Their only win under these circumstances came in their very first back-to-back games of the year, the season-opening pair in Prague against the Buffalo Sabres. So since then, the Devils are 0-3-1 and haven’t won the second half in back-to-back games in nearly two months. They don’t even have the excuse of a residual disadvantage since Washington also played yesterday.

Looking ahead, the Devils have seven more consecutive games remaining in the season, meaning there are a total of 14 more points up for grabs in the second half of the season. The Devils really, really, REALLY need to find a way to not let those 14 points slip away or it could mean they miss the playoffs again.

The next time

The Devils play their first game of the season against their arch-rival, the New York Rangers, on Monday at Madison Square Garden. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.

Your opinion

What did you think of the game tonight? How frustrated are you with the slow starts and consecutive poor performances? What do you expect in the first game of the season against Rangers? As always, thanks for reading.