Devils come home tonight and host the Carolina Hurricanes which is the first game of a five game homestand. I can’t say a lot of negative things about this team after the Buffalo game the other night and that scares me a little bit.
The Matchup: The New Jersey Devils (20-7-1) vs. the Carolina Hurricanes (7-17-5). This is the second meeting of the season.
The Last Devils Game: The Devils put together one amazing game in Buffalo. When the Devils got the lead, they didn’t sit back on the lead, they jammed it down the Sabres throats even harder. Broduer notched his 103 career shutout tying the legendary Terry Sawchuk.
The Last Hurricanes Game: Carolina hasn’t been playing well at all this season so I was really surprised to see them go into Pittsburgh and beat the Penguins 3-2. They did get a 3-0 lead before the Pens started fighting back but were able to weather the storm.
The Last Devils / Canes Game: Better known as shutout #102 for Marty, Jamie Langenbrunner got the lone goal of the game and the Devils won 1-0 which also happened to be their first win of the season at home.
Tonight’s Matchup: Carolina is the owner of the worst record in the league and its gotten so bad that they healthy scratched their captain for Monday’s tilt against the Penguins but the Devils can’t afford to overlook this team.
Cam Ward is going to be back in net after a lengthy injury and while there will be some rust, I would imagine this could also be a boost to the team as well. Hopefully NJ takes the same approach they did on Monday and really try to take it to the Hurricanes.
Langenbrunner has a five-game points-streak (2 goals, 4 assists) and has 5 goals and 17 points in the last 14 games. Center Travis Zajac has notched 3 goals and 12 points over the last 12 games.
I would expect Lemaire to have the Devils focused at the task at hand and predict a 3-1 win for the Devils.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
