The story of the 2019-20 New Jersey Devils is eerily similar to the film ‘Groundhog Day,’ where every third period lead redundantly slips away. For at least one game, the MacKenzie Blackwood-led Devils changed the narrative by preserving a late lead in a must win game against the short handed Pittsburgh Penguins. In spite of solid all around contributions on both ends of the ice from Travis Zajac and Blake Coleman, this game was won solely by Blackwood’s stellar performance.
While Pittsburgh is not short on talent in spite of missing key contributors in Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Patric Hornqcvist; it was titilating to see how they managed to control the tempo of the game in the second and third period without those three players.