While the New Jersey Devils are seemingly locked into third place in the Metropolitan Division, the New York Rangers remain uncertain about their plans after the regular season ends on April 17.
The Devils can help make the path to a playoff spot slightly murkier for their rivals Saturday afternoon when they host the Rangers in Newark, N.J.
The Devils (40-29-7, 87 points) are nine points behind the second-place Carolina Hurricanes heading into their final six games as they return to the playoffs after last year’s disappointing performance. New Jersey has been without Jack Hughes since March 2 and without Dougie Hamilton since March 4 and is 7-6-1 in 14 games since the pair last played together.
New Jersey is attempting to win three straight for the second time since Hughes and Hamilton were injured after completing a home-and-home sweep of the Minnesota Wild. Luke Hughes and Nico Hischier scored in regulation before Paul Cotter and Jesper Bratt tallied in the shootout of Monday’s 3-2 home win over Minnesota before the Devils enjoyed a four-day break heading into Saturday.
“When you play 16 games in 31 days, that’s a heavy workload, that’s a playoff workload, if not even harder because of no breaks whatsoever. You do get into a rhythm and are conditioned to play in that,” Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said at Wednesday’s practice. “That’s what we’ll try to combat and try to pull out of practice what we can do to stay game ready.”
The Rangers (36-32-7, 79 points) trail the Montreal Canadiens by two points for the second wild-card spot in the East. They still have two home games against the Tampa Bay Lightning along with visits to the Hurricanes and Florida Panthers among their final seven contests.
The Rangers are attempting to win three straight for the first time since Nov. 14-19 when they opened with a 12-4-1 start. New York has gone 0-4-3 in its previous seven attempts at a third straight win and heads into the final meeting with the Devils 5-6-3 in its past 14 contests.
New York followed up its 6-1 win at San Jose last week with a wild 5-4 overtime home win over Minnesota on Wednesday when it held a 39-24 edge on shots on goal. Vincent Trocheck scored 24 seconds into overtime to cap a game where the Rangers blew a pair of one-goal leads and were 0-for-4 on the power play, dropping them to 3-for-50 over their past 18 games.
“A win is a win at the end of the day,” New York defenseman K’Andre Miller said. “We’re doing anything we can to get those wins in our column right now, so points are points.”
Artemi Panarin also scored and added two assists. He has 11 goals and 23 points over his past 16 contests.
New York will continue its attempt to avoid missing the playoffs with Gabe Perreault in the lineup. Perreault made his NHL debut on Wednesday and the 2023 first-round pick played a little over 13 1/2 minutes as a linemate of J.T. Miller and Alexis Lafreniere.
The Devils outscored the Rangers 10-1 in a pair of lopsided victories in December, including Dec. 23 when New York finished with 12 shots on goal. Sam Carrick scored the game-winner 2:48 into overtime to give New York a 3-2 overtime home win on Jan. 9.
