N.J. Devils: Where The Wild Teams Are

From the desk of:  THE BRICK CITY STYX

Home Sweet Home

New Jersey Devils: A Triumphant Return To The Rock.

Catch your breath Devils fans.  This is your last two-day break in the regular season.

Starting Tuesday, they'll have thirteen days left with which to squeeze in their final seven games of the season.  That means they'll be playing every other night from here on out, including a back-to-back set at the turn of the month.

All this leaves little time for reflecting upon their team's achievements to date.  When in truth, they have already embarked on something special.  The rebuilding Devils finished last season with 70 points, and weren't expected to be much better entering this season.  Player development was supposed to be their primary focus.  But a funny thing happened on the way to Spring.  They won their 39th game of the season on Saturday, their most since 2011-2012 when they last qualified for post-season play.  They are also only two points shy of matching their 88 points of 2013-2014.  The last Devils team to achieve ninety points in a season were, again, the 2011-2012 Stanley Cup contenders.  Therefore, with regard to the rest of this season the only lingering question is how far can these young new breed demons take this?

After jumping out to an 8-2-0 start in October, they were still 22-10-6 by New Year's Eve.  However, a 3-6-2 record through the dog days of January suggested the time had arrived for Newark to finally find its true level in this year's standings.  Instead, the Devils regrouped to post an 8-6-0 record in February.  They opened March with an overall 33-22-8 record, and are 6-6-0 to date.

But what a month it has been.  Only now are the Devils finally getting a breather after skating through a gauntlet of top Western Conference contenders, and having to play the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins and the Eastern Conference top seed Tampa Bay Lightning on back-to-back nights.  And they damn near defeated them all.  After consecutive victories at Nashville, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, they sustained humbling back-to-back losses at Anaheim and San Jose.  On their way back east, the Devils stopped off in Pittsburgh where they defeated the Penguins in overtime on Friday.  Then, after seventeen days away from the Rock, they finally returned home and short circuited the Lightning on short rest.

With 86 points, Newark leads ninth place Florida by three points, but with nine games left on their schedule the Panthers have two games in hand.  And so if the Devils are to stave off Florida, they must open and maintain at least a four point lead before they're done.  Their season ends on April 7, while the Panthers close out their season a day later.

DEVILS

• Home (5): Penguins, Maple Leafs, Rangers, Islanders, Hurricanes.
• Away (2): Capitals, Canadiens.

PANTHERS

• Home (4): Bruins, Predators, Hurricanes, Sabres.
• Away (5); Bruins(2), Maple Leafs, Islanders, Senators.

In any event, this much is clear: The New Jersey Devils are back on top of the three-team NYC metropolitan area division.

They have the best head coach (John Hynes) of the three teams.  And until Jeff Gorton's rebuild at MSG garners similar results, Ray Shero is arguably the better general manager (Garth Snow is easily last).  The Islanders John Tavares is the best center in town, but for how much longer?  Okay, the Isles also have Mathew Barzal.  Otherwise, rookie Nico Hischier is neck and neck in points with the more experienced NYR top center Mika Zibanejad.

Just saying ...