Devils 1, Avalanche 0: Statement made

The Devils have largely beat up on soft competition in the early going of the season. Friday, they held their own – and proved themselves – against an elite side.

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A few thoughts following New Jersey’s shutout win over the Colorado Avalanche:

Vanecek was fantastic

We witnessed a miracle against Colorado. A true miracle. Not only did the Devils get a high-end goaltending performance, but against an elite team at that.

Even without Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin, the Avalanche have several of the league’s most dynamic players; and they rode them into the ground.

Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar all played more than 24 minutes. They combined to generate 21 attempts, 13 chances, and 10 shots on target. Absolutely nothing came of them.

Vanecek was dialled in from start to finish, coming up huge on numerous occasions where it felt the Avalanche were destined to take the lead or, in the 3rd period, tie things up.

Think about some of the great saves Vanecek made. How many times could he have conceded a goal instead and you wouldn’t have had a second thought about it getting past him? Four? Five? Six?!? Exactly.

There were so many sequences Vanecek could’ve gotten beat and nobody would point a finger. And, in a vacuum, that makes perfect sense. But if he allowed goals in four of those sequences, it’d have been a very subpar performance where – somehow – many scream from the rooftops it wasn’t the goaltending that deserves the blame.

That’s where I think many view things through the wrong lens. Goaltenders aren’t only supposed to stop run of the mill shots at a high rate. They are expected to stop legitimate scoring chances at a high rate.

For perspective, the St. Louis Blues currently rank 20th in high-danger save percentage at 5v5. What percentage have their netminders stopped? Exactly 80%. That’s right; stopping eight out of 10 premium chances is a little below average at this point.

Goaltenders are supposed to come up big significantly more often than not; and that’s something the Devils haven’t seen very often for years. Friday night was a beautiful exception.

Vanecek blanked arguably the best finishing team in the league despite facing 10 high-danger chances and 2.52 expected goals. He was marvellous.