Devils 3, Rangers 1: All squared up

Fantastic two-way showings from Jack Hughes and Jonas Siegenthaler helped the Devils level the series.

Follow along on Twitter @ToddCordell | @InfernalAccess

Be sure to join the Discord channel to talk hockey, and everything else, with our writers and subscribers.

---

A few notes following New Jersey’s series tying victory in New York:

The Devils were suffocating

With penalties being at least somewhat of an issue each and every game, it is absolutely imperative the Devils give the Rangers nothing at 5v5.

That was the case in Game 3 and I think the Devils took it up another notch in Game 4. They were suffocating defensively from start to finish.

There were very few turnovers at the opposing blueline or in the neutral zone that led to easy opportunities for the Rangers. They had to earn their way the length of the ice almost every possession; and had a difficult time doing so.

The Devils’ defensemen did a great job of stepping up and preventing any easy entries for most of the night. This forced the Rangers to go east-west more than they’d probably like.

Great sticks from the Devils’ mobile defense prevented a lot of those passes from getting through; as did excellent backchecks from the forwards. They worked as hard – if not harder – getting back than they did trying to create offense the other way. There was total buy-in and the guys were rewarded.

At 5v5 the Devils once again won the high-danger chance battle, this time 15-7. They gave up only 19 shots on goal, and 1.19 expected goals, in nearly 50 minutes of full-strength play.

It was hard for the Rangers to get the puck into the offensive zone and attempt a shot, let alone get one from a high-danger area. The heat map does a pretty good job of depicting that.

Every team in the playoffs has played four games at the time of writing this. None of them have allowed fewer shot attempts, shots, expected goals or scoring chances than the Devils.

They’re really bottling up the Rangers at 5v5. Now that they’re getting saves, that is shining through.

If they can do a better job of staying out of the box, they will have a great chance of pulling out this series.

Jack Hughes stepped up