The New Jersey Devils will try to shake themselves from their doldrums when they host the Montreal Canadiens in Newark, N.J., on Thursday night.
The Devils have lost three of their last four after winning eight of the first nine games of the season.
Their recent struggles have coincided with an upper-body injury to defenseman Brett Pesce, one of the top defensemen in the league. He is expected to be out of the lineup for about a month.
Bad decisions and turnovers were the culprits in a 4-1 loss to the host Anaheim Ducks on Sunday. New Jersey’s tendencies were exposed during the just-completed four-game Western swing.
“We were just stubborn in a sense of not putting pucks behind, playing to our strength and using speed,” Devils’ defenseman Brenden Dillon said. “A lot of teams, they know our offense comes from our skill and our ability to make plays, so when they take that away, we continue to force it, turn the puck over (and) we make the other team look fast.
“(The Ducks) are already a fast team to begin with. When we play into that, you saw what happened.”
Jack Hughes delivered New Jersey’s only goal, his 10th of the campaign, and Jake Allen made 25 saves.
It was the Devils’ second of back-to-back games after a 4-1 win over the Kings in Los Angeles on Saturday.
New Jersey’s Connor Brown, who missed the last two games with an undisclosed injury, returned to practice on Wednesday, skating on right wing with his usual third-line mates Dawson Mercier and Timo Meier.
The Canadiens lost 5-4 to the Philadelphia Flyers in a shootout at home Tuesday night, which snapped their three-game winning streak. It was Montreal’s third consecutive overtime game. The Canadiens had won the previous two, both by 4-3 scores.
On Tuesday, Montreal rallied from a 3-0 first-period deficit to take a 4-3 lead after two periods. But the Flyers tied it in the third and won the shootout.
“I don’t think we hated our first period, I think we were upset amongst ourselves (for) kind of spotting them three,” said Kirby Dach, who scored twice. “But we know what we have in this locker room and we know the kind of resiliency we’ve built over the years and the belief we have to go out and compete with every team each and every night. It’s just about getting back to the details.”
The Canadiens’ Nick Suzuki extended his NHL season-high point streak to 12 games with a goal. He has 19 points (three goals, 16 assists) during the run. Ivan Demidov also scored for the Canadiens.
Defenseman Lane Hutson had two assists and Sam Montembeault stopped 38 shots.
Hutson, in his second season after winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s Rookie of the Year in 2024-25, has 74 assists in 97 career games. That is the third-most assists by an NHL defenseman before his 100th career game in history behind Hall of Famers Mark Howe (78) and Sergei Zubov (75).
Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said that Jakub Dobes will get the start in goal on Thursday.
The Canadiens also recalled defenseman Marc Del Gaizo from the Laval Rocket of the American Hockey League.
–Field Level Media
