NJ Devils Scoring Chances: Weekly Post: Part 10

Hello all, and welcome back to your scoring chance roundup. This week we will be looking at a very early season game - game #3, in fact. Before we get started, if you would like a refresher on Scoring Chances, here is a link to my introductory post which reviews the definition of a scoring chance.

If anyone would like to quickly get re-acquainted with this game, here are the highlights:

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This was overall a very good performance on 1.25.13 at home at the Rock. The Devils played a struggling Washington Capitals team that still had not really put together its new identity under Adam Oates, or played particularly well yet. Steve and Chico made mention of that very, very frequently during the broadcast, which was sort of humorous to listen to, knowing the Capitals went on to win the Southeast Division.

Regardless, this was a good effort by the Devils, and it featured a stellar special teams effort. It was almost mind boggling how good both the Devils power play and penalty kill were in this game, both in effectiveness, and in generating scoring chances. The Devils penalty kill out-chanced the Capitals power play at 5v4 / 4v5 by a 5-1 margin (The Capitals 5v3 PP was effective, however, chances were 3-0, 1 goal). The Devils gave Washington a super elongated 5v3 advantage. At one point, the Devils had racked up so many minors in such a short period of time, including several bench minors, that the 5v3 stayed a 5v3 after the Capitals scored a goal.

So, had the Devils not gotten real stupid for a stretch there in the third, they probably could have won this game going away, Their power play was fantastic in this game, and provided shades of what many of us hoped would be the new Matt Shaw power play - a lot of shots on goal from different angles on the ice. It turned out to not be the way the power play developed over the course of the season, unfortunately. In this game, it was lights out, as the Devils Power play out-chanced the Capitals 10-0 (5-0 5v4; 3-0 4v3; 2-0, goal 5v3).

One down note was that the Devils blew a 2-0 lead in the third period of this game, a game they were in total control. This turned out to be a problem for the team as the season wore on. Probably not much was thought of it on this day, as Kovy spared us a shootout by drilling a one time game winner with under a minute left in OT.

Gionta had one of his best games of the year in this one, and Josefson probably had his best game of the year. Tedenby had one of his last games of the year.

I'm going to start putting the lines the Devils iced to start these games, since its been a while, and a lot of the players changed a bit. As we know with Pete DeBoer, the finishing product probably varied greatly.

Tedenby - Zajac - Kovalchuk

Zubrus - Elias - Clarkson

Carter - Gionta - Bernier

Matteau - Josefson - Barch

Salvador - Zidlicky

Greene - Larsson

Tallinder - Volchenkov

Here are your scoring chance charts:

Please feel the appropriate amount of encouragement towards leaving your thoughts on the incredible special teams differentials, how the lineup looked way back when, and any other topically related thing which may tickle your fancy. Thanks very much, as always, for reading.