One of the NHL’s best home teams will try to take that success on the road when the New Jersey Devils visit the Buffalo Sabres on Friday.
The Devils’ rise to the top of the Eastern Conference has been powered by their 9-0-1 record on home ice. In away games, the Devils are a modest 6-7-0, losing their last three road dates.
A two-game homestand allowed New Jersey to get back in the win column, as the Devils earned victories over both the Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues. Wednesday’s 3-2 overtime win over the Blues saw New Jersey twice erase one-goal deficits, and Simon Nemec then completed the comeback with the overtime winner.
Beyond the bounce-back goals, the key sequence of the game came when the Devils killed off a four-minute Blues power play in the third period.
“We gave up a goal early in the game on the PK, so we knew we’ve got to dial it in (in the third),” captain Nico Hischier said. “Obviously special teams is very important in this league. We got a power-play goal as well. Games can be decided from that.”
Hischier scored that power-play goal himself as New Jersey went 1-for-2 with the extra attacker Wednesday. The Devils are only 4-for-27 on the power play in their last 12 games, however, and now face the Sabres’ elite penalty-kill unit.
Buffalo blanked the Penguins during Pittsburgh’s only power-play opportunity on Wednesday, and held a 31-19 shots advantage in the game. Unfortunately for the Sabres, they still came up short in a 4-2 road loss that ended Buffalo’s two-game winning streak.
In something of an inversion of the Devils’ situation, the Sabres are in last place in the Eastern Conference due to a miserable 1-6-2 road record and only a decent 8-4-2 home mark. This makes maximizing home points on Friday all the more important for the Sabres as they try to escape the East basement.
The loss to Pittsburgh may have come with the silver lining of an offensive discovery, as both Buffalo goals came in the last 13 minutes of play. The breakout came after the left-handed Zach Benson replaced Josh Doan on the top line alongside Alex Tuch and Tage Thompson.
“The top line, there wasn’t much going on there,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “So (we) just tried to put a lefty over there who could maybe get the puck back into the middle a little bit more.”
Thompson (12 goals, nine assists) and Tuch (eight goals, 13 assists) are tied for the Sabres’ team lead with 21 points apiece.
Since the Sabres also play on Saturday against the Minnesota Wild, two members of Buffalo’s goaltending rotation will split the back-to-back starts. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has started the last three games and will likely get one of the two outings, with Colten Ellis or Alex Lyon starting the other.
New Jersey also plays Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers, so Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen will alternate the next two starts. Markstrom has started the last two games and looked sharp, delivering a 2.45 goals-against average and .914 save percentage.
Jesper Bratt leads the Devils with 22 points (five goals, 17 assists).
