Garden State of Hockey- Episode 114: Decline All Power Plays

The New Jersey Devils played two solid back-to-back games (earning three points out of four) that were sandwiched between two absolutely dismal efforts against Pacific Division teams. In no small part, the inept power play and penalty kill again prevented the Devils from gaining or maintaining any momentum and by any metric, eye test or analytical, the power play once again looks completely powerless with few signs of improvement. The Devils are missing two key pieces to that special teams unit in Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton but at this point, it is hard to argue that it is a lack of talent alone that is causing every single power play to be a chore. Hopefully the recall of Alexander Holtz will help to generate some creativity and scoring threat because otherwise, this team that is surprisingly solid at 5v5 will continue to drop games due to special teams.

The Devils continue their California trip tonight in Los Angeles on ESPN+. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. for the podcast, please feel free to leave them in the comments section and as always, thank you for listening and Let’s Go Devils!