Devils 5, Rangers 0: Another stomping

The Devils walked all over a struggling Rangers team, picking up another shutout victory heading into the break.

Follow along on Twitter @ToddCordell | @InfernalAccess

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

---

The New Jersey Devils picked up a convincing 5-0 win over their biggest rivals Monday afternoon. Here are a few thoughts on the game:

Complete dominance

The Devils entered Monday’s game playing some of their best hockey of the season while the Rangers have been in complete disarray. It showed.

Realistically speaking, it’d be hard to more thoroughly dominate a team who – entering the year – carried as lofty of expectations, if not more so, than the Devils did.

Offensively, Jack Hughes set the tone by going full throttle early on. He scored a goal, assisted on four shots, and helped create a chance on the penalty kill in the 1st period alone.

Jesper Bratt was every bit as good, causing the Rangers a lot of problems in transition with his creativity and dynamic speed.

They helped the Devils get out to an early lead and they never looked back. The Devils continued to show great discipline with the puck, taking what was there and not forcing plays that could go the other way and give the Rangers a pathway back into the game.

They were happy to get pucks in deep, grind the Rangers down in the cycle game, and simply melt time off the clock if nothing was available to them.

Luckily, there were also plenty of instances where the Devils’ structure helped them turn defense into offense.

There were an alarming amount of sequences where the Rangers turned the puck over, were caught pinching, got caught in bad changes, etc., and the Devils quickly advanced the other way for a bevy of great chances on Jonathan Quick. The veteran goaltender was left completely out to dry.

Defensively, the Devils were remarkably good yet again. There were some spurts where they were on their heels but it was a bend don’t break approach.

Even when it looked like a chance could be there for the Rangers, the Devils found ways to recover at the last second and ensure the danger never actually amounted to anything.

I mean, Jacob Markstrom faced 12 shots in a game the Devils led for 55 minutes. Two were high-danger, and two were medium-danger. That’s it.

I don’t think I can put into words how ridiculous that is. It’d be impressive for the Devils to do that facing a bad Blackhawks team playing its 3rd road game in four nights.

To do it to the Rangers immediately after doing it to the Penguins – who have been very good offensively lately, I might add – is nothing short of remarkable.

This was yet another complete performance; one that should have Sheldon Keefe smiling ear-to-ear heading into the break.

Answering the bell