NEWARK — The Devils were left trying to figure out what went wrong with their special teams after the final buzzer sounded and they had just dropped Game 1 to the Rangers.
The Devils failed to register a single shot on net during the man advantage, which included two opportunities in the first 10 minutes of the game. Their penalty kill didn’t do them any favors either allowing two goals on three PKs in New Jersey’s first playoff game in five years.
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“I think it kind of gave a chance for one of the teams to get kind of started,” Devils forward Erik Haula said. “We didn’t score and then they kind of quickly after got that first one. You can always look at it different ways, but we get a goal there on the power play to start the game and you never know how it’s going to turn out. Get the crowd going and everyone’s more confident, but it didn’t work that way today and definitely got to do a better job on the penalty kill going forward.”
The Devils had generated plenty of good looks during their first power play chance of the night and ran circles around the Rangers in the offensive zone. However, they never managed to get a shot on target during the two-minute advantage, which would be their best-looking power play of the night.
New Jersey’s second chance was a hodgepodge that struggled to get into the zone and the Rangers scored 16 seconds into their first power play of the night moments after the Devils second man advantage expired.
In the Game 2 loss, the Devils generated just two high-danger chances on the power play all night, according to Natural Stat Trick. Part of the issue was the Rangers’ ability to block shots on the power play and throughout the game.
New York finished the night with 23 blocked shots, which contributed to some of the Devils’ frustrations.
“Yeah, obviously I mean props to them,” Devils forward Nico Hishier said. “They blocked block a lot of shots, I think (Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin) made some huge saves. Could have gone in maybe at some point, but lost that game. Is what it is, now we look forward to Thursday.”
Still, correcting the mistakes of Game 1 will be a major priority for Lindy Ruff and the Devils coaching staff and one of the main focuses will be the special teams. The Devils’ bench boss was willing to chalk some of that up to the team’s lack of playoff experience.
New Jersey had entered the night with 10 players on their roster that hadn’t played a single game in the postseason.
“I thought we had guys that didn’t handle the puck very well early,” Ruff said. I thought probably nerves, jitters. I think everybody in that room that hasn’t been in a playoff game now knows what it’s like to be in a playoff game, to experience that type of atmosphere.”
The Devils will have a day to evaluate what went wrong before they’re back on the ice at Prudential Center on Thursday for Game 2.
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