Devils Postgame
Tempers Boil Over, Panthers Bully Past Devils in Shootout Loss
Tempers boil over between the New Jersey Devils and Florida Panthers. Overtime wasn’t enough, Devils drop the extra point in the shootout.

NEWARK—Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said there’s no game plan to defend the New Jersey Devils before Tuesday’s tilt. He only wished to contain them.
“You’ve got to make sure you’re not transitioning for them,” Maurice said of the Devils in the pregame. “I don’t know that you defend those guys. They’re going to get their looks. They’re going to get open. You have to make sure you don’t put them in positions to make plays often. In a perfect world, you find those guys and try to frustrate them, but their point totals will tell you no one ever does. So we don’t have a game plan for it. You have to make sure you stay within them and the net.”
Well, Tuesday’s final meeting between the Devils and Panthers was Maurice’s perfect world.
The New Jersey Devils were shorthanded while hosting the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. Warmups revealed forward Stefan Noesen would not play, which the Devils later clarified was an illness-related absence.
Tomas Tatar took Noesen’s place on the Nico Hischier line, and Kurtis MacDermid drew in on the fourth line.
The Panthers certainly didn’t forget what the Devils did to them in their last meetings. In a back-to-back miniseries back in November, the Devils swept the defending Stanley Cup Champions in both games, decidedly.
As a result, the Cats brought the physicality early on Tuesday.
Following puck drop, it didn’t take long for Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk to get under someone‘s skin. 33 seconds into the contest, Johnathan Kovacevic was penalized with a retaliatory cross-checking penalty after Tkachuk laid a big, clean hit on the Devils’ defenseman along the boards.
The Devils killed off the Kovacevic infraction, went on their own power play four minutes later, yet couldn’t convert.
The ensuing 14 minutes of the first period was a chippy one that went into the first intermission as a scoreless tie.
Despite the second period drawing both shots for both teams, it somehow felt slower than the first period. The Panthers out-shot the Devils 11-9, and Jacob Markstrom had to be strong on a few sequences.
However, the close-knit tilt saw both teams see very little ice to create high-danger scoring chances, and as an extension, little to no secondary scoring chances for either side.
It didn’t take long for the game to see its first score in the third period. 40 seconds into the final frame, ex-Devils forward Jesper Boqvist scored Markstrom, scoring his 10th goal of the season.
The Devils quickly struck back, however, as Hischier beat Panthers’ goaltender Spencer Knight just a minute and 20 seconds later to knot the game at one goal each.
Tempers boiled over after the Devils’ captain scored. Tkachuk laid a big hit on Hischier in New Jersey’s end of the ice, and the Devils captain took exception to the high hit. Hischier promptly went after the Panthers forward, who was also being pursued by defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler.
Ensuing roughing calls were assessed to Siegenthaler and Tkachuk, yet the Devils couldn’t convert on the man advantage and the game remained tied at one.
The remainder of the third period went scoreless, and the Devils and Panthers required both overtime and then the shootout.
Paul Cotter scored in the shootout, however, Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes couldn’t finish. For the Panthers, Sasha Barkov and Anton Lundell score, and secure the 2-1 victory for Florida.
Markstrom ended the night making 27 saves on 28 shots, and 1.47 saves above expected.
Maurice got his dream. A well-structured, physical defensive tilt that went in the favor of the Panthers.
The Devils won the season series 2-1 following their final meeting with Florida.
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