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Preview: Panarin & Miller out, 1st game for Devils in 2 weeks

By Steve Paulus

Chris Kreider #20 of the New York Rangers s(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Chris Kreider #20 of the New York Rangers s(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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Janne Kuokkanen #59 of the New Jersey Devils skates against Kaapo Kakko #24 of the New York Rangers . (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Janne Kuokkanen #59 of the New Jersey Devils skates against Kaapo Kakko #24 of the New York Rangers . (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

About the Devils

How the Devils will play is a complete mystery.  They last played on January 31 and beat the Sabres 5-3.   According to the NHL, Nikita Gusev, Nico Hischier, Dmitry Kulikov and Travis Zajac were still on the league’s COVID list as of Monday.  But that’s better than the dozen players who were on the list on Saturday.

The Devils have had one full squad practice since January and that could be a good thing for the Blueshirts as there had been some red hot players on the Devils including the line of Michael McLeod, Nathan Bastian and Miles Wood.  Rookie defensemen Ty Smith has eight points on the season in only nine games and despite playing far fewer games, he is fourth among all rookies in scoring and the top scoring rookie defenseman.

Jack Hughes was also off to a great start with three goals and eight points on the season.  Again, knowing how these players will perform is anyone’s guess especially since Bastian, Jesper Bratt,  Connor Carrick,  Eric Comrie,  Hughes,  Andreas Johnsson,  Janne Kuokkanen,  McLeod,  Kyle Palmieri,  Damon Severson,  Smith,  Matt Tennyson,  Sami Vatanen and Pavel Zacha were all unable to skate for the last two weeks.

The Devils are in seventh place in the East, one point behind the Rangers, but have four or five games in hand on every team except Buffalo.

This season

The two teams have met only once this season with the Devils winning 4-3 in the Rangers’ third game of the campaign.  It was the McKenzie Blackwood show as the Devils’ netminder made 47 saves.  Hyped as the first meeting between the last two top draft picks, it was a clear win for Jack Hughes who had two goals and one assist.

Alexandar Georgiev started the game and surrendered three goals on 19 shots and was replaced by Igor Shesterkin in the third period. Shesterkin stopped all eight shots he faced.

Though the game was in the loss column for New York, it was an impressive offensive performance, but foreshadowed the team’s issues with scoring goals.  It was the only time this season that the Rangers reached the 50 shot mark in a game.

You may want to sit down for the next sentence.  In this game, both Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad scored power play goals.  The third Ranger tally was an even strength goal by Filip Chytil.

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