It’s “Déjà vu all over again.”

Saturday night, at Prudential Center, the New Jersey Devils hosted their rivals, the Carolina Hurricanes, in a matchup between two teams who have gotten to know each other quite well over the last several years. The final score, a 4-1 loss for the Garden Staters, mainly due to Andrei Svechnikov’s hat-trick, was the continuation of Carolina’s domination of New Jersey.

“We’re doing it to ourself,” said Jacob Markstrom. “That’s (a) tough way to lose when we feel like we’re in the (game), doing the right things and then, small mistakes and it’s in the back of our net.”

Twice in the last three years, the Hurricanes have knocked the Devils out of the playoffs. Now, Carolina has even won the first three games of this year’s season series. So, the question is, what can the Devils do to get over the hump and get one over on the Hurricanes?

Before the game, Devils’ Head Coach Sheldon Keefe told the team’s digital reporter, Amanda Stein, “I think Carolina is an elite team. I think there’s probably a lot of teams who would describe it that way. With that said, we beat Carolina three times in our building last season.” 

Yes, the Devils beat the Hurricanes three times in Newark last year. But that was then and this is now.

Jacob Markstrom started in net for the Devils and stopped 31 of the 35 shots he faced. Meanwhile, with Carolina on the backend of a back-to-back, Frederik Andersen drew the start in net and saved 28 out of 29. 

Before the game, Brenden Dillon told Stein, “You know what to expect out of them. You know it’s going to be a hard game. You know that you’re going to have to bring your best and be competitive, whether that’s net front or getting pucks out at the blue line. They keep you to an honest game.

“But we talked about it, and I think it’s now for us to continue to play the right way, is not to worry about the opponent, and keep in the back of our minds, yeah, we did lose last time in here. Those were two important points that we let slip away. So, a big match that we will hopefully be ready for.”

Jesper Bratt, playing in his 600th career NHL game, summed up New Jersey’s pre-game mindset perfectly. “They’re the perfect type of opponent for us to play now. For us to bring that hunger of wanting to beat them more than they want to beat us because of the past couple games and last year’s playoff run. I think is a perfect physical and mental challenge tonight.”

A “big match,” they’ll be ready for? The “perfect physical and mental challenge?” 

The way the game unfolded, it certainly developed a “big fight” feel. The ice was tight, not a lot of room on either side to make plays. There was plenty of hitting. Hard-hitting to be precise. And there were plenty of post-whistle verbal exchanges between the sides. 

New Jersey held the shots advantage throughout the first period and didn’t allow Carolina to register a shot on goal until the midway point of the period. Andersen made a couple of key saves to prevent the Devils from taking the lead and the Garden Staters again failed to take advantage of a power-play opportunity when Sean Walker was sent to the box for tripping Paul Cotter at 2:22 of the opening period. 

The second period was even feistier than the first and once again, New Jersey wasted its power-play opportunities. Walker high-sticked Timo Meier at 6:47 and K’Andre Miller hooked Arseny Gritsyuk at 18:29. (Miller’s penalty carried over into the third period). This meant that the Devils were 0-for-27 with the man-advantage across their last 10 games against the Hurricanes. 

“They pressure hard,” Timo Meier said about Carolina’s penalty-kill. “They got a lot of guys with good sticks and sometimes, on the entry, you just gotta go get it. Put it in and then go get it and they pressure all over the ice. So I think it’s important to be able to make some plays, roll off some guys and then you catch ’em running around and we didn’t compete enough, hard enough, to do that tonight.”

The good news for New Jersey’s special teams was that its penalty-kill was sharp, preventing Cotter’s tripping penalty against Jaccob Slavin at 8:52 from coming back to haunt them. 

However, Andrei Svechnikov proved that you don’t need a power-play to score goals as he tallied two markers, 57 seconds apart, at 13:12 and 14:09, to put the Devils in a 2-0 hole. The first goal saw Svechnikov break off a wrist shot that beat Markstrom from the slot after a Luke Hughes turnover led to the Hurricanes gaining possession of the puck. The second goal was scored off a snapshot from the right face-off dot and trickled through Markstrom’s pads. 

“I’m talking about today, right now,” Markstrom testily said in response to being asked about New Jersey’s struggles against Carolina. “We’re playing good, we’re controlling the game. And then, they break the ice and get the first one and then they took over after that…That’s pretty much the game there.”

“We gotta make good on our chances,” Keefe explained after the game. “We didn’t make them pay for the mistakes that they made and they made us pay for mistakes that we made. We made too many of them, especially in the second period. There’s a sequence of events after our penalty-kill, leading to the first goal and then to the second.”

The Devils did not score on their 29 seconds of power-play time when the third period began; however, they were granted their fourth man-advantage opportunity of the game at 3:16 of the final period when Walker committed his third minor penalty of the game. This time, he slashed Evgenii Dadonov. And this time, they scored.

Timo Meier fired a long dart shot past Andersen from the top of the left face-off circle at 4:27 of the third period to draw the Devils within 2-1 and give the team its first power-play goal against Carolina in its last 28 chances. 

New Jersey didn’t keep the momentum for long. During a delayed penalty sequence, Jackson Blake came off the bench for Carolina, received a nice pass from Nikolaj Ehlers and beat Markstrom with a backhander to put the Devils down 3-1 at 8:33 of the third period. 

Seven minutes and change later, Svechnikov finished off the hat-trick with a shot from just inside the left face-off circle. That gave the Hurricanes a 4-1 lead and proved to be the final tally of the night.

Now, the Devils head out on the road to Western Canada, looking to regain the momentum they thought they had going into Saturday’s game against the Hurricanes.