Devils 'need to play a lot better' in Game 3 to get back into series
Hit road after dropping 1st 2 games of Eastern 1st Round to Rangers at home
Despite the uphill battle this relatively young group faces in the best-of-7 series after losing the first two games at home by identical 5-1 scores, there's a genuine feeling within the locker room they've yet to put together the type of effort that defined their regular season.
"We just need to play a lot better," Devils center Jack Hughes said. "I wouldn't even say it's a 60-minute thing. We just got to play our whole game. I don't even know if we've had too many good periods of minutes where we've put the pressure on them. We got to really shape our game up and figure it out here."
They'll get that chance in Game 3 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN1, CITY, TVAS2).
"They've been playing well, and we've been the one making mistakes," Hughes said. "We've just been shooting ourselves in the foot at times. We just got to play better, and everyone's got to do their role to a better degree. That being said, they've played well, and we haven't played well so it's kind of been a mix of that."
RELATED: [Complete Devils vs. Rangers series coverage]
Hughes set a team record for points in a single season with 99 (43 goals, 56 assists), scoring at least one point in 58 of the 78 games he played this season. The No. 1 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft is experiencing the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time after New Jersey failed to make it in his first three seasons.
"That the Rangers are up in this series has nothing to do with experience," Hughes said. "This is all just them playing better than us. Experience ... that didn't give them a 2-0 lead. It comes down to that they're probably much better than we are and we got to shape our game up."
Rangers forward Kappo Kakko, who was selected No. 2 after Hughes in 2019, has 24 playoff games under his belt. He has a goal and an assist through two games in this series. Hughes scored on a penalty shot in Game 1 but otherwise has been held in check, registering 11 total shots on goal in the two games.
"I still see every game he's getting those one or two good opportunities; it's that stretch in the year where the opportunities don't happen often," Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. "I think he understands that everything is elevated when you get inside a playoff round. This is his first experience with it. I think he's got into the body a couple times to eliminate a play, which is playoff hockey, and I think you see that with a lot of their players at the same time."
New Jersey, the No. 2 seed in the Metropolitan Division, is 1-7 when losing the first two game of a best-of-7 series, including 1-2 when losing the first two at home.
But not only did the Devils establish a franchise record for wins (52) and points (112) in the regular season they also tied a Devils/Colorado Rockies/Kansas City Scouts record for road wins (28), equaling the mark set in 2008-09.
"I think you have to take something from the fact that you played that well on the road," New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff said. "I think it matters for something. Obviously, we're going into a building where there's going to be a lot of energy, but you got to give our team a lot of credit for the amount of road wins we had during the year."
One thing is certain, no matter if they play on the road or home, the Devils will need to pay closer attention to Rangers forward Chris Kreider, who became the first player in NHL history with four power-play goals in his first two games of a playoff year.
"You got to take a stick away," Ruff said. "Our forward at the top can do a better job of being in that shot lane. So when you look at it, I think he had a couple of fortunate ones, but we can do a better job down low with our defensemen."
Ruff held about an hour-long practice on Friday and feels his club is ready for a bounce-back effort.
"I just told the group to embrace this opportunity and realize you're one of 16 teams that have this opportunity," he said. "We haven't gotten the results we wanted, but still have the ability to do something special. I talked to the team last night about that and talked about it again [on Friday]. We win one game and it turns the series around."
