Welcome Back! Now that The NHL’s Four Nations Face-Off Tournament is over, the regular season can resume and it did so in a big way Saturday, featuring 14 games (28 teams in action).
One of those games saw the New Jersey Devils host the Dallas Stars at Prudential Center. The result was a 4-2 loss for the Devils, which continued their slide during the 2025 portion of the season. Since New Year’s, the Garden Staters are now 7-8-3. But while their play before the Four Nations tournament was as bad as their record indicated, Saturday night was not the same. In fact, the Devils rather liked the way they played against Dallas outside of the first six minutes of the game when they gave up two quick goals.
“I really liked our game,” Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe told the media. “I liked the start. I liked our game. It was disappointing to be down two in the first period, but we made a mistake on the first goal and then Nico (Hischier) fell down on the penalty-kill. But, I thought we had good energy. I thought we skated really well. Broke the puck out really well. We made a couple mistakes and they made us pay. That’s what they do. I thought our game was night and day, frankly, from how we were playing before the break. Just in terms of pace and execution and all of that. So that was a really good sign. But, you’ve got to get points and you gotta score more.”
The Devils currently occupy the Number Three spot in the Metropolitan Division, meaning that if the playoffs began tomorrow, they would start the postseason in Carolina against the Hurricanes. But before they get to the playoffs, the Devils first need to get healthy and return to the level of play they displayed prior to the slide that has plagued the team since after Christmas.
Things didn’t start New Jersey’s way as Evgenii Dadonov scored 3:58 into the first period (assisted by Matthew Dumba and Mavrik Bourque) to give the Stars a 1-0 lead. On the play, Dumba fired a shot-pass to the backdoor, where Dadonov was stationed. Dadonov’s initial redirect was stopped by Jake Allen, but he got his own rebound and banged the puck home for the first goal of the game.
Then, just over a minute-and-a-half later, Brenden Dillon was sent to the box for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Lian Bichsel. Thomas Harley, just back from his brief cameo at the Four Nations tournament for Team Canada, made Dillon and the Devils pay as he wired a shot past Jake Allen for a power-play goal that gave the Stars a 2-0. (Assisted by Matt Duchene and Wyatt Johnston).
Harley came down with a case of penalty-itis at 11:36 of the period when he tripped Jesper Bratt. While the Devils put up three shots against Casey DeSmith with the man-advantage, they were unable to score as Dallas’ netminder used his stout stickwork to keep the puck out of his net.
Nico Hischier was assessed a double-minor for high-sticking Oskar Back at 7:39 of the second period. It was on that extended penalty-kill when New Jersey began to generate more offensive chances. Curtis Lazar had a short-handed partial break chance that DeSmith stopped with some nifty stickwork. Then, after the penalty expired, Timo Meier had a Grade-A chance turned aside.
Eventually, Cody Ceci was called holding Meier, sending the Devils to their second power-play, as the momentum continued to swing New Jersey’s way. Brett Pesce also had a quality chance turned aside by DeSmith.
When the second period ended, it was still 2-0 Dallas, but the Devils were beginning to find some offensive rhythm.
With 10 minutes gone by in the third period and the Devils on the power-play, Jack Hughes scored off a one-timer from below the right face-off dot after receiving a pass from Dougie Hamilton. That cut New Jersey’s deficit to 2-1.
35 seconds later, Duchene scored off a feed from Jamie Been to restore Dallas’ two-goal lead. And then, 1:04 later, Hughes scored again, this time from the left side, off a pass from Jesper Bratt, who was behind Dallas’ net, to cut the Devils’ deficit to 3-2.
“We get ourselves back in the game there and then we give up another one right away,” Jack Hughes explained. “So, gotta eliminate that. But a good push by our team. Good belief. We gotta just keep going, coming out of this break. That’s a good start for us, good effort and we gotta just continue with that tomorrow night.”
New Jersey continued to push the pace and even received another power-play opportunity with 44 seconds to go in the third period, but Wyatt Johnston sealed the game with a short-handed empty netter to end the game, 4-2 in Dallas’ favor.
“I mean, it’s frustrating for sure,” said Devils’ Captain Nico Hischer. “But during the game, you gotta try not to get too frustrated. I think we did a good job of that. Even in the second, when we take the four-minute penalty. They did a great job killing that. We killed those four minutes and after that, we got the momentum right back. We showed a lot of good things out there tonight and we gotta build on that. I know we lost, but we just gotta build on the good things we did tonight.”
Next up, a trip to Nashville to face the Predators on Sunday evening, with both teams being on the backend of back-to-back sets.
