x

Already member? Login first!

Comments / New

Every Word Handwritten: Devils 4, Blackhawks 3 (OT)

Simon Nemec? A hat trick from Simon freaking Nemec?!

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

There was a hat trick scored at the United Center on Wednesday night but it wasn’t by anyone on the home team or anyone you’d expect from the road team, but it led to the New Jersey Devils skating away with both points in a 4-3 OT victory.

Late in the first period, a pair of NJ penalties gave Chicago a two-man advantage and a long sequence of sustained pressure ended with this Connor Bedard one-timer for a goal:

Chicago very nearly escaped the second period unscathed. “Nearly” is the operative word there, as Simon Nemec scored on this backhander with 15 seconds left to make it a tie game heading into the second intermission:

A few minutes into the third, the Hawks went ahead 2-1 when this Louis Crevier point shot was redirected into the Devils net by Landon Slaggert, who was called up from Rockford earlier in the day:

But that lead only lasted about seven minutes, as Dawson Mercer tied the game on this one-timer after a perfect setup on a lengthy pass from Jack Hughes:

Later in the third, Sam Lafferty was sprung for a breakway on an excellent outlet pass from Nick Foligno, and Lafferty cashed in with a gorgeous move that needs more than one look:

But that lead only lasted about 2:40, as Nemec scored his second of the night on another goal resulting from a brilliant Jack Hughes play:

In overtime, Nemec — who had six freaking goals in 103 career NHL games prior to this one — completed his hat trick to give the Devils a 4-3 victory.

Notes

Don’t think that anyone who watched sizeable portions of this game needed to be told how much New Jersey dominated possession in this game, but the numbers are comically lopsided at 5-on-5 with the Devils up 64-29 in shot attempts, 30-11 in shots on goal, 27-11 in scoring chances and 13-5 in high-danger chances, all for an expected goal share of about 67 percent. Yes, New Jersey is good and Chicago is a young team still finding its footing at the NHL level, so no cause for alarm because of this outing. But it serves as evidence that Spencer Knight can’t singlehandedly carry this team to the top.

Seems like we get a Levshunov breakup of an opposing odd-man rush in just about every game now, with this one coming after a Bedard turnover during a Chicago power play in the first period. So Levshunov didn’t create the mess he had to clean up — progress!

Moore had several neat little passes in this game, primarily on the backhand, with the most noticeable one being this saucer pass that sprung Bertuzzi for a little breakaway.

He also had ones in the offensive zone that set up Rinzel and Bedard for decent scoring chances. It was nice to see the creativity from Moore while he was skating on the top line, although it does seem like he leans a little too heavy on the passing at times and could be better served to take a moment or two each game and use his incredible speed to create chances for himself. Far from the first rookie forward to wrestle with that particular dilemma, though.

A quick aside to say that, while this is a Blackhawks blog, it’s also a blog that enjoys good hockey in general and holy shit is Jack Hughes good at hockey. Glad he’s over in the other conference so that he’s an opponent just two times each season.

There’s probably some confirmation bias at play here but it sure seems like every time that Ryan Greene gets the puck, it’s quickly moved to a teammate with a good, hard pass that lands directly on his teammate’s tape. Easy to see why he was billed as such a smart, responsible player from the day he was drafted, and he’s certainly been putting that on display since he arrived here.

And now for the Spencer Knight Appreciation Section of the recap:

Knight deserved better in this game as his teammates’ collective in-zone coverage deteriorated as the game wore on and the NJ chances began piling up on the scoreboard before ultimately piling up in the net. Still, don’t think anyone in red is going to be blaming Knight as the reason for this defeat.

The only Blackhawks line with any sort of positivity to report is the Slaggert-Foligno-Lafferty line which had a 59.26 percent expected goal share in 5:37 of ice time together and scored two goals without allowing any. Good for them, but probably not a good sign for the team overall.

Watching the Blackhawks work the puck around before that initial power-play goal feels like the display of high-quality skill that we just haven’t seen much out of this team in prior seasons but now that there are multiple players on the team capable of making a series of maneuvers at a breakneck pace, they can make an NHL goalie look like this:

Mentioned Levshunov at the top and one of the themes with him this season has been that he’s getting the cushiest zone starts on the team but was turning that advantageous ice time into some of the best possession metrics on the team. A noticeable shift occurred in this game, though, with Sam Rinzel starting in the offensive zone 100 percent of the time yet finishing underwater in virtually every possession metric out there. Probably not anywhere near enough of a sample to draw real conclusions from but will be something to watch going forward, to see if Rinzel continues to receive the softer zone starts that Levshunov was receiving — and what Rinzel does with them.

That’s enough of that. Tougher evening for the Hawks but nothing to get too discouraged about. Should be interesting to see how they fare on Saturday evening against a Maple Leafs team that seems to be on the verge of an implosion.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Simon Nemec (NJD) — Hat trick
  2. Jack Hughes (NJD) — 2 assists
  3. Sam Lafferty (CHI) — 1 goal, by far the coolest one of the game

What’s Next

The Blackhawks host the Maple Leafs on Saturday night for a 6 p.m. puck drop.

LOGIN SIGN UP

Talking Points