How did we get here?

Tuesday night at Prudential Center, the New Jersey Devils hosted the Florida Panthers in a game that, before the season began, would have been viewed as a preview of a possible Eastern Conference Final matchup. But now, 61 games into the season, both are looking at Dark Springs as neither team is likely to qualify for the playoffs. Florida came into Tuesday night eight points back of the Boston Bruins for the second Wild card spot and 13 back of the Detroit Red Wings for third in the Atlantic Division. New Jersey came into Tuesday trailing Boston by 11 for the second Wild Card and the New York Islanders by 15 for third in the Metropolitan Division. So, even though the Devils beat the Panthers 5-1, the game didn’t mean anything close to what it could have had this season gone the way it was expected to. 

“I think we just stayed confident,” Cody Glass said after the game. “I think everybody in here, we’ve been battling and maybe our third periods hadn’t been our best periods, but I felt like we kind of just left that in the past and went out there and just played hockey; forgot about everything else. When you do that, sometimes, you’ll play more free. You feel like there’s no pressure on you. If we can get that feeling a little bit more, I think it’ll just keep us in a good place.”

As Jacob Markstrom and Sergei Bobrovsky manned their respective nets (Markstrom stopped 20 of 21 and Bobrovsky stopped 28 of 31), it was easy to contemplate how the season went off the rails for these two teams.

Injuries and underperformance were key reasons for both clubs, but there’s so much more to it. 

For the Panthers, yes, it hurt not having Matthew Tkachuk for the first couple months of the season and losing Aleksander Barkov to a torn ACL and torn MCL during Training Camp was brutal, but, in actuality, Florida just lost the war of attrition. It is exceptionally difficult, especially in today’s NHL, to go to the Stanley Cup Final four straight years and to win three in a row. The fact that they even went to three Cup Finals in a row and won two straight is beyond impressive. But nothing lasts forever and the repeated short summers have worn the Panthers down. 

If anything, Florida’s cross-state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, are a blueprint the Panthers can follow. The Lightning won two straight Cups earlier this decade and went to three straight Cup Finals before being bounced in the first round three straight years. However, this year, Tampa Bay is now co-favorites with the Carolina Hurricanes to win the Eastern Conference. So, there is a path for the Panthers to regain their top form.

“It’s tough, for sure,” Gustav Forsling said after the game. “But we’re sticking together in here, and there’s no quitting in here. We’re going to keep fighting until the end here. Obviously, it’s a tough loss…This is hockey. It’s going to bounce against you, and you’ve just got to stick with what you’re doing and believe in that and keep grinding and hopefully we’ll turn this around.”

However, the Devils are a much more perplexing situation. Yes, injuries, especially those to Jack Hughes, have hindered the team’s scoring, but even without the middle Hughes brother, New Jersey’s Top-Six has more than enough speed and skill to score its fair share of goals. Depending on the game and everyone’s injury situations, the Devils can roll out a Top-Six that includes Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier and Dawson Mercer. 

Hughes has missed 21 games so far this year. Hischier and Bratt have had down years. Meier has been his streaky self, but has only 16 goals thus far. Mercer plays better down in the lineup and has been inconsistent regardless of what position (winger or center) he plays. 

Arseny Gritsyuk was supposed to bring a youthful infusion of energy to the talented Top-Six, but only has 10 goals and 14 assists (24 points) on the year. And while he scored his tenth goal of the season during the first period against the Panthers, it was his first point since New Jersey’s overtime win against the Nashville Predators on January 29th (a span of seven games). It was his first goal since scoring against the Edmonton Oilers on January 20th (a span of 11 games). 

The bottom six for New Jersey has been a revolving door this year and multiple injuries to Evgenii Dadonov (along with his ineffectiveness when healthy) have rendered New Jersey’s most notable offseason move moot. 

GM Tom Fitzgerald said at the end of last season that they wouldn’t just run it back this year. Well, they basically have, and the results have cratered. Now, the most notable move that is likely to be made in the coming couple of months is that Fitzgerald is increasingly likely to be out of a job once the season ends. 

So, the level of optimism that exists with the Panthers is not present in the Devils’ situation.

Now, getting back to Tuesday’s game, Florida came out strong, hemming New Jersey in their own zone for the first minute or two before the Devils began to push back. After a couple of minutes, Maxim Tsyplakov found himself alone in front of Bobrovsky, but the stout netminder stood tall. Meier had two semi-breakaway chances that were also turned aside by Florida’s goalie. 

Eventually, with 12:10 gone by, Gritsyuk sniped the puck past Bobrovsky off a two-on-one odd-man rush to give the Devils a 1-0 lead. Moments later, the nastiness began.

“First off, the team who scores first often wins in The League as it is,” Sheldon Keefe explained after the game. “But, for a team that has such a struggle seeing the puck go in the net, it’s tremendous for confidence and emotion, energy, all those kinds of things. It’s important. We’ve been really good in third periods and closing out games all season long. We just (need to) put ourselves in that position more frequently. We’ve shown the last two games that even that one goal makes a real big difference.”

Eetu Luostarinen hit Jack Hughes from behind, into the corner boards. Simon Nemec was the first one to go after Luostarinen. Brenden Dillon soon got involved, too. New Jersey ended up on the penalty-kill. But while their penalty-killers did their job, Anton Lundell scored seconds after Florida’s power-play expired to tie the game 1-1 at 14:37 of the first period. 

“They felt the hit was clean,” Keefe said about the Officials’ decision to put the Devils on the penalty-kill. “So that’s the first thing. They had nothing on the hit and then they felt that we were the aggressors after the fact. I didn’t agree with that one, but we found our way through it.”

Then, with 19:07 gone by, Brenden Dillon – who was still angry about the hit on Jack Hughes – went after Lundell and was assessed two minor penalties, one for cross-checking and one for roughing, for a total of four minutes of penalties. 

Still on the penalty-kill when the second period began, Mercer sprung Hischier for a short-handed breakaway that resulted in Aaron Ekblad hooking New Jersey’s Captain to cause the teams to skate four-aside for two minutes. 

During the four-on-four, Jack Hughes sent a shot wide of Bobrovsky and Dougie Hamilton sniped the juicy rebound into the back of Florida’s net for a 2-1 Devils’ lead at 1:35 of the middle period. Cody Glass added to the Devils’ lead with his career-high tying 14th goal at 8:13 of the second period, 3-1 New Jersey.

“Right before that, I took a puck to the face,” Glass explained. “It went to (Jesper) Bratter and Bratter almost scored. I think I was a little bit still dazed from it and then I knew Lenni (Hameenaho) was gonna shoot it. But yeah, I saw it coming and just tried getting my stick anywhere around it and obviously it’s in the back of the net. So that was a good feeling.”

New Jersey went into defense-mode in the third period, allowing Florida just two shots on goal over the final 20 minutes of play. The Devils then salted the game away when Dawson Mercer (16:23) and Simon Nemec (19:20) scored empty net goals to give the home team their 5-1 margin of victory.