A night of frustration for the New Jersey Devils as Scott Wedgewood and the Colorado Avalanche dominated, securing a 4-0 shutout victory at Prudential Center on Sunday, December 8th. This shutout win marks Wedgewood’s seventh in his NHL career and his first since January 19th, 2023. It was a very unfortunate loss for the Devils as they had a great two-game winning streak prior to this matchup against the Avalanche. However, the Avalanche had their second win straight after taking a 5-3 loss in Carolina on Thursday. The Devils host the Toronto Maple Leafs next, and the Avalanche will head to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins, both on Tuesday, December 10th.
New Jersey Devils Lineup:
Palat – Hughes – Bratt
Meier – Hischier – Noesen
Haula – Mercer – Tatar
Cotter – Dowling – Legare
Dillon – Hamilton
Siegenthaler – Kovacevic
Hughes – Pesce
Allen
Markstrom
Colorado Avalanche Lineup:
Lehkonen – MacKinnon – Rantanen
Colton – Mittelstadt – Nichushkin
Kiviranta – Kelly – O’Connor
Prishchepov – Ivan – Wagner
Toews – Makar
Girard – Malinski
Middleton – de Haan
Wedgewood
Georgiev
Scoring on their first shot on goal early into the opening frame – Ross Colton put the Avalanche ahead 1-0 at 15:53 when Samuel Girard passed the puck to Valeri Nichushkin, who sent it to Casey Mittelstadt. Mittelstadt took the puck behind the net, found Colton, and passed it to him, who found the back of the net with a wrister from just the right of the crease. Colton had recently just returned (Saturday, December 7th) after missing 17 games due to a broken foot. Nearly tying it up to 1-1, Jesper Bratt had a no-look tap of the puck over his shoulder, but it, obviously, had been immediately called back due to a high stick. Timo Meier had then nearly tied it when he was batting at the puck in the crease until it slid in after Jack Hughes shot the puck from his knees to the front of the net where Meier had been. However, it was reviewed and determined not a goal. Logan O’Connor made it 2-0 for Colorado with 5:08 remaining in the first period when he redirected a shot from Calvin de Haan, who fired from the left boards.
Artturi Lehkonen extended Colorado’s lead to 3-0 for his seventh goal of the season late in the second period with 5:24 on the clock on a breakaway, scoring on a wrist shot that went over Jake Allen’s glove after some fighting for the puck and Casey Mittelstadt got ahold of it, sending it out to Lehkonen for the third Avalanche goal.
New Jersey had another opportunity to score to cut Colorado’s lead to two goals early in the third when Timo Meier shot toward an open net, but it went off Devon Toews’ leg. Parker Kelly struck the empty Devils net for the 4-0 final with 3:55 left in regulation.
Jonathan Kovacevic on Colorado’s early lead, the difficulty of the Devils using their speed, the frustration of knowing they can’t sort of find their plan B, and if them scoring first would make it a different game: “After they got out to an early lead, they did a good job of staying on top of us, so they kind of were keeping us in front of them and then it was hard for us to use our speed. I know that’s a strength of our team, using our speed and getting pucks behind them. They did a pretty good job of kind of sitting back a little more and keeping us in front of them,” – “It’s definitely frustrating… We got to go look ourselves in the mirror and think like, to a man, how can we be better in the o-zone? I think every guy has some plays they want back, and we got to find some ways to create offense in the o-zone… It’s a focus that we’ve been focusing on, and we got to do a better job of it. – I mean, I would say yes, but at the same time, you got to be able to play any type of game. Like if the other team gets to an early lead, there’s 82 games, it’s going to happen where the other teams score first, and we got to find a way to respond, find a way to break through them. That’s a formula we’re still looking for.”
Notes:
– Scott Wedgewood made a total of 25 saves for Colorado, and Jake Allen made a total of 19 saves for New Jersey. …Wedgewood is 2-1-0 in three games (two starts) since he’s been acquired in a trade from the Nashville Predators on November 30th.
– Wedgewood had been selected in the third round – No. 84 – by the Devils in the 2010 NHL Draft, playing parts of three seasons with them across two stints (2015-16; 2020-21 to 2021-22)… He has allowed five goals on 144 shots – .965 save percentage – in six games against his former team (4-0-0).
– Ross Colton recorded his ninth goal of the season in 12 games, and both Casey Mittelstadt and Calvin de Haan picked up a pair of assists.
– The Devils were outshot in the second period 10-2.
– The Devils were 0-for-5 on the power play and have been 0-for-5 in the past two games after scoring 7-for-11 in their previous three.
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