Sheldon Keefe Says Devils ‘Made Life Easy’ On Sharks Mackenzie Blackwood

NEWARK — The New Jersey Devils were hoping to make it four wins in a row by collecting their second win in as many nights. San Jose Sharks goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood had other plans.

A plethora of ex-Devils arrived with the Sharks to the Prudential Center on Sunday night. In addition to Blackwood, Vitek Vanecek, Fabian Zetterlund, and Tyler Toffoli all arrived with the Sharks’ starting goaltender.

In their fourth game in seven days, the Devils suffered a shutout at the hands of Blackwood, finding themselves back in the loss column.

Devils Recap

After an even back-and-forth affair in the first period, the Sharks broke open the scoring on a puck thrown toward the slot that bounced off Timo Meier and into the back of the Devils’ net. Nico Sturm was credited with the Sharks’ first period goal to give San Jose a 1-0 lead.

Fabian Zetterlund thought he scored his first goal against his former club in the second period. However, the officials determined he pushed Jake Allen’s pad over the goal line with the puck and ruled no goal on the play.

The Devils got a late third period power play and pulled Allen to give themselves a 6-on-4 advantage. Yet, Mackenzie Blackwood stood tall and slammed the door on New Jersey, registering a 44-save shutout.

Jake Allen in a lesser workload turned in a strong performance, recording 26 saves on 27 shots.

Takeaways

Too Cute

One of the problems that haunted the Devils in the opening frame was they tried to be too cute with the puck.

As a result, they were a bit too passive, as opposed to showing an assertive shooter’s mentality.

There were a few occasions where the Devils had the opportunity to create a prime high-danger chance, yet they passed up on the opportunity and found themselves heading to the other end of the ice.

It was most evident toward the end of the opening frame, when a streaking Dawson Mercer received a pass above the circles. He had plenty of ice in front of him to gain the slot with the puck on his stick. Instead, the 23-year-old forward opted to pass, and even missed his target.

Rather than keeping the game simple by making crisp quick passes and getting pucks on net, the Devils looked to make the perfect play far too often.

“On a lot of chances, we tried to make an extra pass and tried to get too cute,” Timo Meier explained. “That’s what happens. Sometimes you gotta find kind of the garbage once in front of that, and get pucks through and fight in the inside. We didn’t do that.”

Low Pressure

44 shots seems like a lot, right?

Well, it is, but it was the equivalent of empty calories.

The Devils didn’t do enough to pressure Blackwood. They lacked secondary scoring chances, struggled to collect rebounds, and only registered nine high-danger chances as opposed to San Jose’s 11.

“I didn’t think we had enough through two periods, certainly, of making an art on the goaltender,” Sheldon Keefe explained. “I thought we made life easy on him, quite honestly.”

Goalied

Keefe’s right. The Devils didn’t apply enough pressure to force Blackwood to make any extra saves.

Rarely, if ever on Sunday did Blackwood need to sprawl and make a breath-taking stop to keep the Sharks ahead.

Still, he was poised and played near the top of his crease. He even turned aside seven power play shots — most of which came in a 6-on-4 situation — and three shorthanded chances with Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt on the ice.

Facing his former team, Blackwood had some extra motivation. Fellow ex-Devil Fabian Zetterlund called the Sharks goaltender the best netminder in the world.

“Today? Maybe today,” Blackwood responded.

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