3 Takeaways From Devils’ Touchdown & Extra Point Against Capitals

Naturally, they were led by Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes, who had two goals each — but also Dawson Mercer’s 12th career multi-goal game. The second of his goals tonight marked the 100th of his career.

“[The 100th goal] is a cool milestone to get to,” said head coach Sheldon Keefe postgame. “Like, this is where we’re at this point in the season. You want the players feeling as good as possible, like their numbers to be as good as possible. If there’s milestones out there within reach, you’d like them to accomplish them, those are the kinds of things that unfortunately with where we’re at come more to the forefront, because you want the players feeling good about themselves, and that’s something we can latch onto.”

After having slipped down to fourth, the touchdown and extra point helped the Devils re-take their crown as the NHL’s best goal scoring team since Feb. 28 (3.90 GF/60). Prior to that date, they were the NHL’s worst goal scoring team. Talk about a transformation!

Jack’s five points tonight was the best mark of his career. After going 865 days in between efforts with 4+ points, he did it tonight for the third time in 26 days.

“Number 86 helps,” said forward Connor Brown with a laugh. “I mean, he’s absolutely dancing. He creates a lot of space, especially off the rush. It’s tough to play against when you’re playing against them, and Bratter for that matter too, two guys that can kind of turn on a dime, you know, you’ve got to think twice about what kind of looks they’re taking.”

Allen Gets Glorious “Run Support”

Oddly enough, the Devils have struggled to score more with Jake Allen in net compared to Jacob Markstrom. Since they became Devils, the team has scored ~6.4% fewer goals on average in Allen’s games.

It may not seem like a lot, but for reference, this season Allen is 16-16-1 with a 2.70 goals against average (GAA) and .906 save percentage (SV%), while Markstrom is 22-18-1 with a 3.12 GAA and .883 SV%. That should make it more glaring. There’s no likely no real explanation or logic for why this occurs; it’s more just coincidence than anything.

But with that being said, it had to feel good for Allen that he got this much goal support. Their seven was the most they’d ever put up in one of his starts — in fact, it was the most they’ve scored in any game since they also posted seven against the San Jose Sharks on Feb. 27, 2024 — 765 days ago.

Defense Still Needs Work

While the offense has been surging for over a month now, the defense continues to have their fair share of breakdowns and regrettable moments. For most of the season, their defense has been middle-of-the-pack, which was a big reason they dropped a lot of games between the early eight-game skid and the Olympic break.

Now, they’re essentially outscoring their problems, which is excellent for the offense but not-so-good for the defense. Tonight, the Capitals actually out chanced the Devils 35-24.

“The story of the game is our offensive execution. We were not very good defensively tonight,” said Keefe. “We gave up a lot, Jake had a lot of work, and that gets overshadowed and forgotten about because of the volume of scoring (…) There continues to be lots to desire for us in how we’re defending right now.”

Moving Forward

The Devils — now 39-34-2 — will return to their barn on Saturday (7:00 PM EDT) to begin a home-and-home with the Montreal Canadiens.