Dress rehearsals can be fun and certainly serve a purpose, but for the New Jersey Devils, the hard part is what comes next. Having completed their pre-season slate of games, the Garden Staters have a couple of last-minute roster decisions to make before Monday’s 3pm deadline. 

Saturday night, at UBS Arena, the Devils visited the New York Islanders for their fourth and final pre-season game. The result was a 4-1 Devils’ victory that was fueled by a two-goal performance from Luke Evangelista, as well as tallies from Arseny Gritsyuk and Dougie Hamilton.

Jake Allen, New Jersey’s presumed Opening Night starter, also played well in his first full game of the pre-season, stopping 14 of the 15 shots he faced and carrying a shutout late into the third period. Opposite Allen was the Isles’ Ilya Sorokin, who stopped 22 of the 26 shots New Jersey sent his way.

“First time playing together with most of us,” Brett Pesce told Devils Team Digital Reporter Amanda Stein Saturday morning. “Just looking to get chemistry off the hop. This game is important to get the systems ready, feed off of guys. Guys haven’t played together, just practice. Getting an extra game and more reps is important to hit the ground running.”

“It’s our first dress rehearsal, you could say,” Cody Glass added to Stein. “We want to communicate, have some fun out there. The real thing starts soon. Us coming together and being a team again is always fun to do.”

Thursday night’s season opener against the Philadelphia Flyers will have plenty of pomp and circumstance, but between now and then some hard decisions must be made and the coaching staff, led by Head Coach Sheldon Keefe, will make sure those who stick around are ready.

“New coaching staff on our bench as well, with a couple new guys,” Keefe told Stein. “A chance to have the group together. Them finding their rhythm, but me as a coach to find the rhythm of the ice time, the way the game flows. It’s all good. The guys have done a nice job of putting in the work to get to this point. Obviously, our final pre-season game before we turn the page and get to work for real, recognizing that you’re in preparation mode.”

Chief among the decisions to make is who earns the 12th forward spot, as well as the 13th and maybe even 14th spots. Amadeus Lombardi played in his third pre-season game Saturday night and, outside of one solid D-zone play in the first period, failed to make much of an impact in this one after two strong games previously. His competition for those spots is Stefan Noesen and Jesper Boqvist. 

Conceivably, two of those three will make the team. Lombardi probably possesses the most upside, while Noesen has carved out a steady NHL career, but is attempting to return to form after injuries wrecked his season last year. Boqvist is back with the Devils after a three-year hiatus that saw him play for the Boston Bruins and Florida Panthers and has previously shown he can provide a spark when called upon.

Part of the decision on which forward(s) stay will be whether the Devils choose to carry the standard two goalies or go with three. Allen and Nico Daws are expected to handle the bulk of the starts in net. But between Allen’s age and Daws’ inexperience, New Jersey decided to bring in David Rittich during the off-season as insurance. Rittich has endeared himself to the team so far and would need to clear waivers in order to be sent to The AHL.

“I’ve known Nico (Daws) for a while now, ever since my first year (here), three years ago,” Allen said after the game. “He’s a great kid with tons of potential and (I’m) here for anything he needs. With Ritter (David Rittich), he’s a guy that’s played a ton of NHL games. He knows what he’s doing and whatever’s called upon is called upon and we’ll be ready to go.”

Lastly, on the blue line, when the Garden Staters are fully healthy, they can roll out a sextet of Dougie Hamilton, Luke Hughes, Brett Pesce, Brenden Dillon, Jonathan Kovacevic and Jonas Siegenthaler. 

However, Kovacevic is almost certainly going to start the year on IR as he continues to recover from an off-season procedure. That opens up a spot for Declan Chisholm to receive steady playing time in the interim. But once Kovacevic comes back, Chisholm likely becomes the seventh defenseman. So, the question then becomes: would the Devils really carry an eighth defenseman? Probably not. 

“We’ll get through this,” Keefe said to Stein. “(We’ll) have a good day off tomorrow that everybody needs and then get a sense of what the final roster looks like in terms of how many forwards, how many defense, how many goalies are going to be around here and we’ll move ahead from there and get at it.”

The Isles’ Scott Mayfield committed the first penalty of the game at 4:47 of the first period when he was called for holding New Jersey’s Anthony Mantha. On the ensuing Devils’ power-play, Luke Evangelista beat Sorokin with a snipe from the slot, off a feed from Jack Hughes in the right circle, to give the Garden Staters a 1-0 lead at 6:13 of the opening period. 

New Jersey’s special teams stayed hot, killing off a Dawson Mercer holding penalty and a Chisholm tripping penalty. That perfect stretch was blemished slightly when New Jersey’s power-play failed to convert its second chance of the period after Kashawn Aitcheson was sent to the box for interfering with Evan Rodrigues at 17:46.

The Devils opened the second period with a wave of offense, scoring two goals in 19 seconds. The first came when Arseny Gritsyuk flew down the left wing and sniped the puck past Sorokin to give the Devils a 2-0 lead. Then, with the Garden Staters swarming the Islanders’ zone, Nico Hischier fired a shot that rebounded to Evangelista, who buried his second goal to give the Devils a 3-0 lead. 

“It’s definitely building,” Evangelista said after the game about his chemistry with Timo Meier and Hischier. “It’s still obviously very new. But I think, if you look at the games, I mean, we were able to connect twice in the first game and then able to connect five-on-five again here tonight. 

“We had looks, had some O-zone time. Like I said, still early. It’s only been two games, but it’s been nice to get a few shifts with them, connect a couple times. We’re just gonna keep looking to build.”

“They’ve been good,” Keefe chimed in. “I mean, both games we’ve played, they’ve been very good. They’re working well together. Their game seems to be in sync and complementary at the same time. So yeah, very encouraging.”

With 5:13 left in the middle period, Dougie Hamilton took advantage of the Islanders’ disarray and roofed his shot to give the Devils a 4-0 lead.

All off-season, New Jersey has hoped that its new additions would lead to the team unlocking a new level of offense and Saturday night offered a glimpse of that.

“It’s huge,” Keefe said. “It allows us to sustain our game, shift over shift over shift. It was excellent. We got rolling there, four lines; it was real tough for the opposition the way we were playing tonight… When the four lines were rolling, everybody was playing quick, both with and without the puck. Created a pace of the game that we wanna get to that makes it real hard to play against us. 

“We can’t do that without having the depth that we have to be able to sustain it shift over shift and not have to kinda pick up the momentum that you might lose in a couple different sequences, which kinda happened to us in the third period with how we were playing. But, at our best, we’re gonna be able to roll and really come at teams.”

Simon Holmstrom’s goal broke up the shutout with 4:39 left in the third period. The Devils clamped down from there and finished off their 4-1 victory to complete a 3-1 pre-season. Next up is their home opener against the Flyers on Thursday, October 1st. So, while the pre-season has been fun, next time is when the games really count.