The New Jersey Devils and the Carolina Hurricanes spent the whole game trading chances on Saturday, February 10th. Both teams played a great, high-intensity game… definitely, a game that would have you sitting on the edge of your seat!
Devils lineup against the Hurricanes:
Palat – Hischier – Bratt
Hughes – Haula – Toffoli
Meier – Lazar – Mercer
Holtz – Nosek – Bastian
Bahl – Nemec
Hughes – Marino
Hatakka – Miller
Vanecek
Daws
Hurricanes lineup against the Devils:
Svechnikov – Aho – Teravainen
Bunting – Drury – Necas
Martinook – Staal – Jarvis
Noesen – Kotkaniemi – Fast
Slavin – Burns
Skjei – Orlov
DeAngelo – Chatfield
Kochetkov
All three periods remained completely scoreless… however, there was a lot of action from both the Devils and Hurricanes. Traded chances, hard play against the walls, along with many great saves by both Vitek Vanecek and Pyotr Kochetkov.
The New Jersey Devils played their strongest performance of the season. They had gotten multiple chances and played hard, one of the most complete games defensively they have played, making a phenomenal effort. The Devils did not give up once in the whole game – It was playoff-type of hockey, a very tight and intense game.
After having a 0-0 score for so long, it was very possible it would’ve been able to end in a shootout to decide the winner. However, that isn’t how it ended.
With 1:20 to go in overtime, Sebastian Aho called it wraps when he scored the game-winner. Martin Necas cut to the slot to get a wrist shot, Aho batted the rebound out of the air at the crease on the top past Vitek Vanecek for a 1-0 final.
The Devils picked up a very well-earned single point in the 1-0 loss against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Timo Meier on the Devils’ performance and their 1-0 loss against the Hurricanes: “I thought we had a lot of chances over the game, so did they. It was a very tight game, there wasn’t a lot of room out there. It was playoff-type of hockey out there. Obviously, they’re a good team and we would have loved to have the second point, but I think we can definitely build on this game. It was a 60-minute solid performance and now we just got to build block after block. This is definitely something to build off of.”
Kevin Bahl on the Devils’ effort: “If we bring that effort into every game, I think we’re going to give ourselves a really good shot to win a lot more and push hard in this last stretch of the season,” – “I think the effort is obviously there every night, but I think it was just our attention to detail and wanting to be in a defensive position, not give up that unlucky bounce… I think that was one of the biggest things I thought defensively, I felt we were really well structured.”
Martin Necas on the Hurricanes’ overtime win: “It was a kind of crazy overtime. I didn’t even see how it would go in – It’s a good win, it was a tight game. They played good defense… Great win, great goal by fish (Sebastian Aho), and now we can rest up a little bit and get ready for the big roadie.”
Notes:
– Pyotr Kochetkov made 34 saves for Carolina, his second shutout of the season for the Hurricanes.
– Brady Skjei led the Hurricanes with three blocked shots
– Vitek Vanecek made 31 saves for New Jersey
– Nico Hischier had three of the 10 shots by the Devils in the first period.
– Jack Hughes had eight shots during his first five periods back from his injury, going into the third period against Carolina. In the first 40 minutes, Hughes got four shots, then three in the final 20.
Thursday night in his return, he registered four shots on net. Jack Hughes reached a total of 11 shots in the past two games.
