The New Jersey Devils played the Detroit Red Wings at Prudential Center on Wednesday in their regular season finale before heading to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
It was not a good game and things for this New Jersey team did not look promising. They let many things get by them and struggled to get anything across the Red Wings’ goal line.
The Devils were quiet for most of the game and remained scoreless until the third period, when things started to pick up. The Red Wings, however, scored five goals and beat the Devils 5-2.
New Jersey did not play their best game. However, several penalties were called against them throughout all three periods. Most of them were for tripping several of the Red Wings players. By the third period, the Devils finally started to get somewhere. It began with Erik Haula, who scored a deflection off a shot from the point by Daniel Sprong. He was assisted by Sprong and Seamus Casey.
Moments later, Dawson Mercer scored by jumping on a rebound in front of Red Wings goalie Alex Lyon. He was assisted on the goal by Haula and Mike Hardman.
The Devils’ goalie, Nico Daws, did the best he could. He made 22 saves and allowed very little to get through during this game despite the way his team played in front of him.
The three stars from this game were Detroit’s Dylan Larkin, the Devils’ Erik Haula, and Detroit’s J.T. Compher.
Despite Wednesday’s loss, the Devils were locked in and secured for the playoffs. New Jersey finished the regular season as the No. 3 seed and will face the Carolina Hurricanes as the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference first round. Game One of that series will occur on Sunday at 3 p.m. in Raleigh, North Carolina.
