Devils 4, Red Wings 3: Markstrom rebounds in winning effort

Jacob Markstrom put forth his best performance in weeks, leading the charge in a bounce-back win.

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The New Jersey Devils successfully defended home ice on Monday night, grinding out a 4-3 victory over the Atlantic-leading Detroit Red Wings.

Let’s get into some takeaways:

Jacob Markstrom rebounds 🏀

Markstrom was once again the story of the game. This time, for the right reasons.

The Devils were far from their best against Detroit. After a really strong opening period, they were unable to keep their foot on the gas.

They really didn’t do much to slow the push from the Red Wings over the final 40 minutes.

New Jersey turned the puck over too many times (even Arseniy Gritsyuk, our perfect large adult son, got in on the fun), took two more penalties than they were able to draw, and spent extended stretches of time bunkering down in the defensive zone.

It felt like a successful shift was simply getting the puck past center ice and surviving for the next line to come out rather than maintaining any sort of possession and threatening offensively.

Luckily, it did not matter. A version of Markstrom we haven’t seen very often this season was able to handle the rest after getting some early run support.

It wasn’t always pretty by any means. There were some juicy rebounds and instances where Markstrom looked like a fish out of water.

At the end of the day, though, he tossed his body around like a frisbee and came up with big saves when the Devils needed them.

Markstrom stopped 32 of 35 (.914 save percentage) and shaved more than two goals off Detroit’s expected total.

It was a very good performance from a guy who needed one more than anybody else on the roster.

Hughes, Nemec provided the juice 🧃