This is simply a case of bad timing. The New Jersey Devils’ four-game winning streak was too little too late. Had it happened two months ago, perhaps things would be different now. That being said, their streak getting snapped by the Detroit Red Wings was just one more nail in their coffin.

Sunday night, at Prudential Center, the Garden Staters hosted their rivals from Motown for the second game of their weekend home back-to-back set (they played the Rangers on Saturday). The result was a 3-0 loss for New Jersey that likely extinguished what little chance they had left of making a run to the playoffs. There’s only 18 games left in their season and New Jersey trails Boston by 10 points for the second Wild Card and the Islanders by 11 points for third place in the Metropolitan Division. Besides, all the teams ahead of them just keep winning. 

Jacob Markstrom, in net for his fifth straight start, made 27 saves on the 30 shots he faced. At the other end of the ice, John Gibson saved 21-out-of-21 before being replaced by Cam Talbot for the third period due to injury. In his lone period of play, Talbot stopped all 10 shots he faced to finish off the combined shutout. (It’s the seventh time this season the Devils have been blanked by the opposition).  

With the Devils seeking a fast start to the game, Moritz Seider put an immediate wrench into those plans when his long shot from just inside the blue line, near New Jersey’s bench, found its way past Markstrom at 3:20 of the first period to give the Red Wings a 1-0 lead. 

“We just didn’t have it tonight,” Devils’ Head Coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game. “We were slow. We were second a lot. I thought we had a pretty decent start. We had a little bit of jump early. But we ran out of gas too quickly in a game that we needed the gas. I thought Detroit played really well, played really hard, played smart. They had the benefit of playing (with) the lead for most of the game and they managed it really well.”

New Jersey killed off two penalties during the next dozen minutes: a Luke Hughes hooking call against Marco Kasper and a too many men on the ice penalty that negated their lone power-play opportunity of the period and was served by Arseny Gritsyuk. The Devils’ aforementioned power-play came at 11:20 of the first period, when Andrew Copp slashed Nico Hischier. But that man-advantage opportunity was negated with 42 seconds left. 

Andrew Copp was called for high-sticking Dawson Mercer 29 seconds into the middle period, but the Devils were unable to score on the power-play for the second time in the game, bringing them to 4-for-12 during their current five-game stretch. Jonathan Kovacevic was sent to the box at 5:43 for interfering with J.T. Compher and New Jersey’s penalty-killers faltered, allowing a power-play goal by James van Riemsdyk at 6:37, who deflected Seider’s long shot past Markstrom to give the Red Wings a 2-0 lead. After allowing that power-play goal, New Jersey’s penalty-kill fell to 14-for-16 during their five-game stretch. 

“Penalty-kill’s been excellent,” said Keefe. “I think we’re second or maybe third in The League since the turn of the new year. So it’s more than just the sample you’re talking about. We’ve been real good on the kill for a long time. Even just prior to Christmas, we were really good as well. (Since the) power-play didn’t score and the game was so tight, we gotta get that one. But we’ve probably been asking a little bit too much of our penalty-killers of late in terms of the number of them. But we’ve got great confidence in it right now for sure.”

The Devils’ penalty-killers got back to good habits when they killed off a Brenden Dillon interference penalty against Copp that was called at 13:35 of the middle period. That upped their success rate to 15-for-17 during their current five-game stretch. 

“We wanna try to stay aggressive on the PK,” Jonas Siegenthaler said after the game. “I think we did a pretty good job over the last couple games, and I mean, you can see it from the outside too. Just staying aggressive, and if you go with the flow, it kind of gets a little easier.”

Timo Meier and Ben Chiarot had a scuffle behind Detroit’s net with 4.5 seconds left in the second period and both received two-minute penalties for roughing. So, the third period began with the teams skating four-aside for 1:55. 

As previously mentioned, Talbot replaced Gibson in Detroit’s net to start the third period. Gibson was presumably hurt during the play that led to Chiarot and Meier’s skirmish at the end of the second period. The play in question saw Meier run into Lucas Raymond, who ended up colliding with Gibson as a result. 

Dominik Shine’s first career NHL goal, off a backdoor feed from van Riemsdyk, put the game out of reach at 10:24 of the third period, giving the Red Wings a 3-0 lead. 

When Simon Nemec tripped Michael Brandsegg-Ny at 15:45, it put the Devils on the penalty-kill for the fifth time in the game. And for the fourth time, New Jersey killed off the penalty to run their strong PK stretch to 16-for-18. 

“Credit to Detroit, they did a really good job of taking away that (the middle) bit of ice,” Keefe explained after the game. “They didn’t make anything easy on us for sure. We didn’t get to the inside enough. There was enough opportunities to do so, but, (they kind of) pushed us out there (and) then left us out there. (I) think we finished the game at like 67% controlled entries. The highest rate in The League is 52%. So we put ourselves in a spot to have the puck a lot and be on offense and all that. But it was numbers all the time. They got people back. You gotta work your way in, find different ways and we didn’t. We didn’t do that nearly enough.”