Devils 5, Kings 2: California love

It wasn't always pretty but the Devils managed to grind out another big two points on the West Coast.

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A few observations from New Jersey’s win over Los Angeles:

Goaltending was a huge factor

As inconsistent as Mackenzie Blackwood has been (again) this season, the numbers painted him in a much better light than Jonathan Quick heading into last night’s game. It wasn’t hard to see why for anyone who stayed up to watch.

We’ll start with Quick. He was flat-out terrible any way you slice it. Although the Devils generated a lot of xG – much more than it felt like – the team’s four goal output over the first 30 minutes had a lot more to do with Quick’s struggles than anything they were doing.

Quick allowed multiple charmin soft goals and, had a better replay angle been available, Jonas Siegenthaler might well have tacked an extra one on there as well.

Quick was very clearly fighting the puck and it felt like everything the Devils tossed on net had a real chance to go in. Nothing was easy for Quick, who often looked unsure of himself even when making the save.

It was quite the opposite for Mackenzie Blackwood. He coughed out some big rebound opportunities throughout the game but the Devils were always there to clean up the loose change.

Blackwood did make a handful of Grade A stops and he deserves a lot of credit for keeping the Devils in a game where they were really slow out of the gate and laboring at 5v5.

All told, Blackwood stopped 1.56 goals above expectation while Quick was Swiss cheese at the other end. That was the difference.

5v5 play was a problem