Devils Topped by League-Best Jets | GAME STORY

NEWARK, NJ - It can be an uphill battle against a team like the Winnipeg Jets on the best of nights, and is especially so when you concede a 3-0 lead to the team with the league's best record.

It's what happened to the New Jersey Devils on Friday, allowing the Jets to build a three-goal lead after 40 minutes before the Devils would find a way to beat Jets netminder Connor Hellebuyck. But one goal against the Jets won't cut it.

"It’s hard to digest," Jonathan Kovacevic said post-game. "We got outclassed in every area tonight. It was a dissapointing result, but a dissapointing effort towards the end there. You could see in some of our body language too, tough game for us."

The Devils came flying out the gate of the third period with a goal by Dawson Mercer, his 14th of the season, to cut the Jets deficit to 3-1, but it was the lone goal the Devils could manufacture as the Jets claimed back their momentum.

“I tried to talk to them after the second period about what we expected and what we want,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said. “And I ike how they responded to come out in the third. It’s got to be more of that. Results are tough right now. We weren’t our best today, certainly not even close but it was better than what it should have been (…) We’ve got to keep up with our confidence, for sure. It’s going to be our greatest challenge, my greatest challenge by far the rest of the way.”

"Any time we get a goal it’s going to give us some juice, but if I’m not mistaken, it was pretty quick after that we give one right up," Kovacevic added. "That’s deflating. We feel like we just got some wind in our sails, we’re jsut about to get back in the game and they answer so quickly.”

Alex Iafallo, Josh Morrissey and Nikolaj Ehlers scored for Winnipeg in the first 40 minutes before Adam Lowry, Kyle Connor and Cole Perfetti registered third period goals to hand the Devils a 6-1 loss.

Jacob Markstrom made 29 saves on 35 shots, while the Devils had just 23 shots on the league-best Hellebuyk in the Jets net.

"This is the group we have and we believe in us. We all know we’re here for a reason. We say that a lot and it’s just something that we want to prove out there instead of doing what we did (tonight).

Here are some observations from the game:

• Brian Dumoulin made his Devils debut, just over 24 hours after being traded to New Jersey. Dumoulin wore no. 2 and paired up with recently signed Johnathan Kovacevic.

It was a big day all-around for Kovacevic, including his new defensive partner. Earlier in the day he signed a five-year deal to remain with the Devils and followed it up by assisting on Dawson Mercer's goal for his 15th point of the season. His 15 points, with 18 games left in the regular season, tied his career-high set during the 2022-23 season while with the Montreal Canadiens. With the Habs, Kovacevic had 15 points in 77 games. He has 15 in 64 this season.

• It was a difficult third period for the youngest player on the ice, Simon Nemec, against the Jets. Adam Lowry picked off the puck from Nemec in the Devils defensive zone to go in all alone on Markstrom, a shot that resulted in a goal and the Jets taking a 4-1 lead. Winnipeg then took a 5-1 lead after Nemec lost a battle by the net against Cole Perfetti, who poked the puck into the net behind Markstrom.

Keefe was asked about his young players performance on Friday night and how to navigate working with a young player when the runway in the season is starting to shorten:

"Its really hard, yeah. That’s what happens when you have injuries, you’ve got to put guys in situations but he’s a better player than that. That player that played in the third period is in the wrong league, the player that played before that, throughout our road trip can help us. We’ve got to find some consistency. It’s hard, this is not the league where you work through your growing pains on a team that has any sort of expectations. Players that aren’t quite ready to contribute to teams that have expectations, they play in the minors. We need more from everyone. Nemo is a confident guy that thinks he can help our team play in this league, he’ll have lots of opportunity to show us right now but that wasn’t it in the third and you can’t reward that effort.”

• Mid-way through the second period Keefe gathered his whole team by the bench during a TV timeout and was delivering an animated message. Kovacevic shed some light on his coach's message from the bench:

"Basically, if we’re not going to outcompete them, we’re not going to have a chance. If we’re not going to stick to our process, we don’t have a chance. There was a lot of one and dones in their end, we weren’t getting nearly enough O-Zone time and it just wasn’t a recipe for success. Just trying to kick us into gear and stick with our game plan, but we weren’t able to execute tonight."

• Luke Hughes, much like he did in Dallas, took over the quarterback role on the first power play unit. Earlier this morning, head coach Sheldon Keefe indicated it was something the staff was going to try even before the loss of Dougie Hamilton to injury, but also had their hands forced with the loss of Hamilton.

Hughes quarterbacked a unit with Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Jesper Bratt and Dawson Mercer, while Simon Nemec manned the blueline for the second unit, alongside Tomas Tatar, Paul Cotter, Ondrej Palat and Stefan Noesen.

• Just prior to puck drop general manager Tom Fitzgerald met with the media to discuss the Devils deadline day moves. Check out Sam Kasan's feature article on all that Fitzgerald had to say.

Message to the Team

The Devils haven’t only lost Jack Hughes for the rest of the year, Fitzgerald noted that Siegenthaler will miss the rest of the regular season and Dougie Hamilton “will be out an extended time.”

That said, the team’s goal has not changed. They still want to make the playoffs and compete for a title.

“That’s our goal. It’s no different than the start of the year,” Fitzgerald said. “The difference is we’re missing some players. Those players, you can’t fill those shoes. But we still have a good team. You look at our goaltending, you look at our defense, how we’ve defended. We’re one of the better teams in the league defending. That’s where it starts. We’re going to have to manufacture goals differently. I really like the way we’ve played.

You can check out all the trades and acquisition in this Devils Trade Tracker Blog.

• Tom Fitzgerald also announced on Friday that defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler will be out for the remainder of the regular season, while Dougie Hamilton is expected to miss "extended" time.