The New Jersey Devils will look to build on a solid effort when they kick off a busy stretch Tuesday night against the Florida Panthers in Newark, N.J.
The Devils are coming off a 3-2 overtime win against the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. New Jersey is 2-0-1 in its past three contests after a four-game losing streak.
After facing defending Stanley Cup champion Florida, the Devils will visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday before returning home for a weekend back-to-back set against the Philadelphia Flyers and Ottawa Senators.
“This is going to be a really important week,” Devils forward Timo Meier said. “We’re facing good teams. We’re facing a team (Tuesday) that we’ve beaten twice in their rink, so they’re obviously going to come hard, so we’ve got to be ready right off the start.”
Five of New Jersey’s next six games are at home after a six-game road trip. The Devils, who are 13-6-3 as the hosts, are second in the Metropolitan Division, five points behind the first-place Washington Capitals.
New Jersey will look to take the season series against the Panthers after posting a 4-1 win on Nov. 12 and a 6-2 victory two days later.
“We had a game plan going in,” Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said of those games. “The guys stuck with it, committed to it. It was really having everything fall into place that we talked about in training camp all the way through to that point, and it being probably the most consistent that it’s been throughout 60 minutes in each of those games. I would say it set a real model for us of what we’re capable of.”
Stefan Noesen’s power-play goal 3:19 into overtime lifted New Jersey over Tampa Bay on Saturday.
The Devils are third in the NHL with the man advantage, connecting at a 28.4 percent clip. But it’s been a rougher go of late, with the team going 2-for-18 (11.1 percent) over the past eight games.
The Panthers, meanwhile, arrive in the Garden State looking to snap out of a funk that’s seen them drop six of their past nine games (3-5-1).
The latest setback came 4-3 Monday to the Philadelphia Flyers.
Florida led 2-0 after the first period, and Philadelphia halved the deficit in the second period before tying it early in the third. Sam Reinhart put the Panthers back in front at 3:35 of the period, but the Flyers tied it again before scoring the winning goal with 5:51 remaining in regulation.
“We just got away from our game,” forward Evan Rodrigues said. “Stopped being physical. I feel a little bit too cute and definitely just let them back in the game.”
The Panthers lost for the first time when leading after two periods (16-1-0).
Reinhart’s third-period tally secured his second straight two-goal performance. He has five goals in his past three games and leads Florida in goals (27) and points (51).
“He had a two-week block, maybe less than that, when he got sick this year,” coach Paul Maurice said. “Other than that, he’s just been flat-out great every night.”
–Field Level Media
