There are many ways a difference can be made to give a team the win in Game 7. Sometimes it’s a clutch goal late in the game to win it. Sometimes it’s a goalie standing on his head to secure the victory. And sometimes you just get an all around perfect team effort, or as perfect as one can be.
The New Jersey Devils played a near-perfect game to get the Game 7 win over the New York Rangers, and they take the series with a 4-0 win, something that seemed improbable considering they were down 2-0 after dropping both of those games on home ice.
The first period saw no goals, but the Devils were certainly putting on the pressure early on. The shots were only 7-6 in the frame, but at 5v5, the Devils had an 18-9 edge in shot attempts, 8-1 edge in scoring chances, and a 0.78-0.19 edge in expected goals. That gap only widened in the second, with them going 26-19, 20-8, and 1.97-0.72 in those respective stats, but the big difference was that this time they got some goals.
Michael McLeod opened the scoring for the Devils midway through the second with a shorthanded goal after Ondrej Palat made Adam Fox look like someone from your rec league games to set him up, and the Devils did not look back. They got one more in the second as well, with John Marino driving the net for a chance, collecting his own rebound in the corner, and setting up Tomas Tatar to give the Devils a 2-0 lead going into the third.
The Devils only needed to keep doing what they were doing to close this game out, and while it wasn’t to perfection, they still didn’t fully sit back and kept the Rangers stars contained. However, it wasn’t without controversy, as Jacob Trouba absolutely rocked Timo Meier with a big hit, leaving him on the ice after some head contact, and he eventually went to the dressing room. Meier did return, but it still brought up a conversation about how even if the hit was clean by the rulebook, maybe it shouldn’t be.
They could breathe a sigh of relief late in the third as Erik Haula gave them a 3-0 lead off a pass from Jack Hughes on a 3-on-1 opportunity for the Devils, and that was just about it. Jesper Bratt got his first of the series with an empty net goal a couple minutes later, and that 4-0 goal held for the final score. Palat and Marino led the way in scoring for the Devils with two assists each, while Akira Schmid was excellent in net, stopping all 31 shots to give him his first career playoff shutout.
With that, the Devils advance to the second round for the first time since 2011-12, and end what was the third-longest playoff series win drought entering the playoffs, and the second-longest after the Toronto Maple Leafs won their series over the Tampa Bay Lightning. They will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round, an opponent they’ve faced four times in their history, most recently in 2009 in the first round, which the Hurricanes won in seven games.
The Rangers head home early in disappointment after buying big at the deadline in hopes of replicating their run to the Eastern Conference Final last season. They’ll have about $10 million in cap space with Alexis Lafreniere and K’Andre Miller being the member of their core in need of a new contract in the offseason, so they may only be able to bring back a couple of Vladimir Tarasenko, Patrick Kane, Tyler Motte, Niko Mikkola, and Jaroslav Halak, depending on the amount of money they want.
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