Costly Mistakes Lead to the Devils Downfall

The New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers are heading to a Game 7 after the Rangers won Game 6 by a score of 5-2. While the Rangers played an excellent game, the Devils made two costly mistakes up 1-0 which was the turning point in the game and possibly the series.

New Jersey opened the scoring again in Game 6. This time it was thanks to a hard-working shift from the fourth line. Michael McLeod, Nathan Bastian, and Curtis Lazar were put together after Game 2 and have been a force for the rest of the series. They had their legs moving in Game 6 early.

New Jersey’s forecheck was apparent early on. The Devils were pinning the Rangers in their offensive shift after shift until Lazar scored to make it 1-0 after potting home a shot from Kevin Bahl from the point.

New Jersey remained in control for most of the period. The Rangers seemed to have no answer for the Devils fast attacking style and relentless defence. However, that was until the Devils made the first of two costly mistakes. The first was by Dawson Mercer leading to a power play for the Rangers.

Mercer brought the puck in over the line and pulled up. Instead of getting the puck deep, he tried to make a backhand pass through the middle at the top of the line and it was intercepted by Patrick Kane. Kane was off to the races on a breakaway. Mercer did his best to catch up to Kane. Though Mercer made a good defensive play knocking the puck away, he did a tripping penalty.

From there the Rangers power play went to work. Mika Zibanejad took a shot that was going wide, but Chris Kreider was able to redirect it into the net behind Akira Schmid for his sixth goal of the series. From there the game changed in the Rangers favour.

This costly mistake gave the Rangers and their faithful life. Speaking after the game, Mercer knew he had made the wrong decision.

“I just tried to make an offensive play. Obviously, I would have liked to put that one deep,” said Mercer, who scored a late power-play goal. “I would like to have changed that for sure.”

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The Devils were able to turn the momentum in their favour again after killing off back-to-back penalties from Ondrej Palat, however, that did not last long. The same issues the Devils had all year reared their ugly head again in Game 6.

Time after time during the season, the Devils failed to either cover a man in the open slot or get the puck out of the zone. Both of those things happened in the second period. With the Rangers sustaining pressure, Zibanejad is left alone in the slot as he ripped one passed Schmid for a 2-1 Rangers lead.

New Jersey was finding chances, but the back-breaking goal came late in the second period. This time off the stick of Vladimir Tarasenko. The Devils second costly mistake occurred after failing to clear the puck out of the zone. Instead of chipping the puck off the wall, Bastian tried to pass it to the middle. That did not goal well. This allowed the Rangers to tire out the Devils fourth line.

With the puck in the zone, the Rangers got their skilled players out on the ice. The first one is Tarasenko wide open in the slot. He scores to 3-1 Rangers with 1:35 left in the second period. Late-period goals can swing momentum and the Devils gave up way too many this season.

From there the route was on. Barclay Goodrow and Braden Schneider added goals for the Rangers. While Mercer got on the scoreboard for the Devils late in the third period.

The Devils know they need to clean up the mistakes heading into Game 7.

“It was a couple of D zone mistakes we made that ended up in the back of our net, captain Nico Hischier said post-game. “They’re good players. They made good plays.”

One thing is for sure the Devils need their top players to get going. Between Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, and Jesper Bratt they have a combined three goals. That has to change if the Devils want to win this series. Having your top players step up goes a long way toward winning. It will also help when the Devils cut down on the costly mistakes in all three zones on the ice.

One thing is for sure all eyes will be glued to this game on Monday night.