Sharks 1, Devils 0: Blanked by Blackwood

Mackenzie Blackwood saved his best performance of the season for his former team.

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A few observations from New Jersey vs. San Jose:

Mackenzie Blackwood stole two points 🦈

The New Jersey Devils have laid plenty of eggs against bad teams in recent years. Although they came up lame once again, I don’t think that was the case here.

The Devils were OK out of the gate but continually upped their game as time passed. They were sharper in possession, generated more extended pressure in the offensive zone, and were just flat-out better.

Quite frankly, I was encouraged they continued to ramp things up despite playing their third game in four nights against a team that had been off since Thursday.

Generally, you’d expect to see their game get progressively worse – not the other way around.

The Devils threw everything but the kitchen sink at their former netminder. They generated 44 shots on target, 33 scoring chances, and 4.48 expected goals.

It would’ve been nice to get more traffic in front of Mackenzie Blackwood but the Devils still tested him heavily with plenty of dangerous looks, including multiple flurries of rebound attempts right on the doorstep. Blackwood simply had an answer each time.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you the Devils played a perfect game. They didn’t – the Sharks certainly had some good sequences. But the Devils won the SOG battle by 17, the xG battle by more than 2.0, and Jake Allen wasn’t beaten by a single Sharks shooter.

If I offered that to Sheldon Keefe prior to the game, he wouldn’t have been able to sign up fast enough.

The Devils gave a good effort and did enough to win (or at least get a point). They just didn’t.

Hughes and Bratt brought the danger ⚠️