Former New Jersey Devils captain and current MSG Network television analyst Bryce Salvador appeared on Monday’s edition of "Daily Faceoff Live" to share his thoughts on the Devils’ current 12-game winning streak.
The Devils haven’t lost a game since Oct. 24, toppling the likes of Toronto, Colorado, Calgary (twice), and Edmonton over that span. They’ll look to complete a season series sweep of the Oilers at Prudential Center on Monday.
Salvador has kept a close eye on the Devils all season (from “fire Lindy” to “sorry, Lindy”) but — as he told Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna on Monday’s show — even he didn’t see this huge winning streak coming. But he made sure to give the Devils their due credit for some of the recent changes they’ve made, both on and off the ice.
Here’s an excerpt from the conversation.
Frank Seravalli: Bryce, when you look at this start for the Devils, [12]-game winning streak, absolutely incredible, did you see any of this coming when you were going through training camp and watching this team closely in the pre-season? Was there any indication that New Jersey would be at a spot where they might be able to pull something like this off?
Bryce Salvador: Well, no, you can never say a team’s gonna win 12 straight and predict that. But what I can say is, you started to see some of the pieces come into place a couple of years ago when general manager Tom Fitzgerald started to add some of the ingredients of a defensive core by trading for Siegenthaler and Graves, which, they’re tall, they’re long, and that back end started to formulate into arguably the best defensive core in the National Hockey League this year with another trade, adding John Marino and signing Brendan Smith. So, from the back end, you started to see some of that come together. And Mike, you would even agree that the goaltending was just not where it needed to be last year — the Devils saw seven goalies have some ice time last year. You’re getting above-average goaltending this year, the back end is much better.
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