Amid a flurry of commerce deadline exercise, the New Jersey Devils are nonetheless struggling to enhance their playoff standing within the Jap Convention.
In the meantime, the Philadelphia Flyers’ postseason hopes proceed to fade with the staff mired in one other prolonged slide.
The Devils will look to keep away from shedding 4 in a row whereas attempting at hand the host Flyers their fourth consecutive defeat on Sunday afternoon.
New Jersey, which sits in third place within the Metropolitan Division, is 9-14-3 in its previous 26 video games and has been outscored 12-4 throughout its three-game slide.
The Devils had no defensive reply throughout Friday’s 6-1 residence loss to Winnipeg, which got here hours after buying veteran forwards Cody Glass and Daniel Sprong and established defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Dennis Cholowski.
“We had a objective to attempt to add to the staff, sure positions,” Devils basic supervisor Tom Fitzgerald mentioned.
“We thought that the bottom-6 space was one thing we may attempt to add some velocity, some dimension and a bit extra depth.”
Depth can be key for the Devils, who lately misplaced star Jack Hughes (shoulder) for the season. Dougie Hamilton (lower-body harm) will miss “prolonged time” and fellow key blueliner Jonas Siegenthaler (lower-body harm) shouldn’t be slated again till the playoffs.
“No Jack Hughes, however we’re not a one-man staff,” Fitzgerald added. “No Dougie Hamilton, however we’re not a one-man protection corps.
“We’re a very good staff. Our staff realizes that once you play a dedicated, defensive recreation, you give your self an opportunity each evening.”
New Jersey has misplaced three of its previous 4 video games on the highway, the place it fell 4-2 at Philadelphia on Jan. 27. Nevertheless, the Devils beat the Flyers 5-0 at residence two days later for his or her first win in three video games on the season sequence.
Dawson Mercer had a objective in that victory for New Jersey and in addition scored Friday. Teammate Timo Meier has simply 4 factors in 11 video games since he recorded a objective with two assists in these two January video games versus Philadelphia.
Philadelphia strung collectively a 4-0-1 stretch that spanned the 4 Nations Face-Off break and adopted a 1-6-1 rut. The Flyers answered their latest run of excellent fortune by getting outscored 14-5 in shedding three straight video games. These losses opened a seven-game stretch at residence, the place the Flyers dropped consecutive 4-1 contests to Winnipeg and Seattle, and in addition misplaced 6-3 to Calgary.
“We have to maintain working at our recreation,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella mentioned. “It is going the incorrect path. As every recreation has passed by, we have gotten worse, so we have simply bought to maintain working at our recreation. Now we have one other likelihood (on Sunday).”
Flyers captain Sean Couturier lamented the staff’s play late within the second interval.
“Giving up a objective late within the interval is hard, and we gave up two there,” Couturier mentioned. “I feel it is not simply that, it is earlier than that. All recreation lengthy we gave up numerous odd-man rushes, we weren’t above the puck. It was ugly.”
Flyers rookie ahead Matvei Michkov had an help on Owen Tippett’s objective to spice up his level complete to 11 (4 targets, seven assists) in his previous seven video games.
–Area Stage Media
