Today’s NHL Prediction features the first matchup of the season between the New Jersey Devils and Tampa Bay Lightning. The Devils (21-15-2) embark on the first leg of a three-game road trip. They’re recently coming off a 6-4 home loss against the Vancouver Canucks. Tampa Bay (20-17-5), enter tonight off the back of a 3-2 comeback victory against the Los Angeles Kings. In the three meetings between these two last season, victory favoured the road team. The Lightning won two out of the three, with the lone Devils win coming in Tampa, 5-2.
The storyline for this game is mostly surrounded by the Devils injuries. They’ve lost Timo Meier, Ondrej Palat, Jack Hughes, and Jonas Siegenthaler all in a week. It has been a difficult season for the Devils, especially with injuries, and they enter tonight in a pivotal game in the Wild Card race heavily undermanned.
NHL Predictions: New Jersey vs. Tampa Bay
Three Keys to Victory for New Jersey
Don’t Break First On Defence
Outside of all the forward injuries, the Devils are now down their opening-night top pair. With both Dougie Hamilton and Siegenthaler out long term, the immediate future of the Devils defence-core is bleak. Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec have both been fantastic as rookies, but they’ll likely be asked to play massive minutes now. John Marino, who’s had a down year, will now be leaned on to be the leader on the backend. In addition, Colin Miller and Brendan Smith will now be pencilled into the lineup regularly. However, all that being said, Tampa Bay has had defensive woes of its own. At 5v5 they have the fourth-worst goals against, only behind San Jose, Chicago and Columbus. Their defensive depth is being tested and it is not passing with players like Calvin De Haan, Darren Raddysh and Emil Martinsen Lilleberg being relied upon. Even with their injuries up front, if there was a game for the Devils to score goals, it would be this one.
McLeod And Holtz Magic
In a time of crisis, one of the few bright spots in recent games has been the duo of Michael McLeod and Alexander Holtz. They are playing some of the best hockey of their career this year, and the Devils will need it to continue. Over the last three games, McLeod has scored two points and added two assists. Meanwhile, Holtz has a goal and two assists and has been the Devils best goal scorer at 5v5. In addition, Holtz’s ice time is consistently going up since joining McLeod’s wing. He is a player with immense goal-scoring potential, and it’s nice to see Lindy finally trusting him to play more minutes. As for McLeod, since the start of the season, he has looked like a different player. He is on track to break all of his career highs in scoring. With the laundry list of forward injuries, these are two guys to keep an eye on.
Ready For Battle
After a four-day rest, the Devils are getting ready for one of the toughest stretches this season. Add to that them being undermanned, and it will take herculean efforts to come away with points. On point percentage, the Devils would be in a division spot, but they currently sit a point out of the Wild Card, behind Tampa. Seven of their next nine games are against teams currently in a playoff spot. The Devils came into this season with Stanley Cup aspirations, but are now on the outside looking in. Tonight in Tampa will be their first big test to see if they are a resilient enough group to win a game despite having a talent disadvantage. How this team battles tonight against a Tampa team they’re chasing for a playoff spot will be very telling.
Prediction Time
Winning at all costs has to be the motto for the Devils moving forward. Wins aren’t coming as easily as they did last year. For Tampa, they have had their fair share of ups and downs, and like the Devils, have yet to find much consistency. The issue tonight for the Devils is that we’ve seen how they play with key forwards out of the lineup. They played half of November without Nico Hischier, Hughes, and Meier and the results weren’t there. How they come out tonight will be very telling and a testament to how much Lindy Ruff’s messaging is getting through. If they lose because of a lack of talent, fine, but don’t lose because they didn’t battle hard enough.
Prediction: Lightning Win 4-3
Main Photo: Morgan Tencza-USA TODAY Sports
