In some ways, yesterday felt like the start of hockey season to me even though we’re already five games into our regular season (while other teams like the Caps just played their opener on Saturday, against us!). Don’t get me wrong, I did get to watch most of the Sabres games overseas – either live or on tape – and the latter half of the game against the Caps a few days ago but I had to miss the home opener last Thursday. That was just as well, since the Devils threw up a clunker against the Leafs, falling behind by three goals before the first period was over and never really getting back into the game.

Plus there’s the small matter of a surprisingly long Met playoff run that’s still going on, not to mention my Jets’ season being in dire straits (probably pushed over the brink last night) – further splitting my attention over hockey season’s first week and a half. Yesterday however, I was off and I’d already decided to go to the Devils game against Utah in part because I’d missed the home opener.

As a sports fan, yesterday was a rather…unique circumstance with the Devils, Mets and Jets all playing on the same day back to back to back. According to my own research, that particular combination has only happened once before in history on October 18, 2015. And in yesterday’s case, none of the games conflicted – Devils at 1 PM, Mets at 4, Jets at 8:10 (though silly me, I actually thought the Mets game started at 5 so…I missed their whole six run outburst). Perversely, part of me liked the aspect of having all three play yesterday since it is so rare.

Maybe if the Devils had been playing on the road I wouldn’t have bothered to pay as much attention but as it was I’d been pretty blase over following the first four games. As such I won’t recap the latter two, probably the less said about the home opener the better anyway. It was a dud (though probably not as bad as 4-1 late in the second period would suggest), they were probably due to score on every chance they had after being shut out by the Canadiens the night before and we were clearly due for a reality check after two straight comprehensive wins in Prague. At least the stars showed up in that game with Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier getting the goals. From what I heard, it sounded like a…subdued atmosphere at the Rock for the opener. Not a big surprise considering both how quickly the game went south and also the fact the Yankee playoff game was a distraction for quite a number of fans there.

At least Saturday’s game was much better on the ice, with the role players leading the way once again – Seamus Casey scoring the Devils’ first goal after the Caps had opened the scoring, Paul Cotter scoring two more to raise his total to four(!) so far, Tomas Tatar scoring his first of the season which put the Devils back in front for good and Dawson Mercer adding an empty-netter in a game where the Devils were still shaky at times, but at least this game wasn’t a loss like three of our games against the Caps were last year!

In a way yesterday did feel like a different kind of home opener with a ‘sellout’ to boot, although it was clearly a late arriving crowd for a 1 PM game and secondary market tickets were the lowest listable price so it was kind of a soft sellout as far as I could tell…but still a nice crowd for what would normally be an attendance buzzkill if the game wasn’t on a holiday. I certainly didn’t mind going in and out of the arena earlier than normal and having sunlight out, although traffic was clearly of the rush hour variety in and out of Newark both ways because of the odd time of the game and it coming when most people had the day off.

With Brett Pesce still not ready to return, there were no changes to the lineup aside from Jake Allen starting on the front end of a back-to-back (the Devils’ early season odyssey takes them to Carolina tonight for their sixth game against a Canes team who’s only played one so far, go figure). Utah rolled into the Prudential Center with the makings of a high-powered attack after scoring sixteen goals in their first three games – all wins, including a 6-5 OT track meet at MSG on Saturday while the Devils were looking for their first win in New Jersey this year after starting 3-0 away from Newark.

Early on, there wasn’t much action as the two teams combined for only eleven shots on goal, and the best scoring chance for either team was when Bratt got pickpocketed right in front of Allen, but the goaltender stopped Alexander Kerfoot’s point-blank chance in front. Eventually the Devils gained more of a foothold on the contest, and in the second period they came out flying with an early power play, getting on the scoresheet thanks to a rookie who’s personally come out flying early in the season:

Keeping the puck in might have been more impressive than the goal itself, as he used his body for leverage and feeding Nico Hischier before the captain returned the favor on a nice one-two and the rookie did the rest. You could have given Casey a goal and an assist on the same play and not been hyperbolic, but he would assist on someone else’s goal just several minutes later when his point shot got through traffic to Stefan Noesen in front, and the fired-up vet put one in at 8:13, continuing his own strong start to the season:

Through the first five games of the season, Noesen has put up two goals and four assists with a +3 and twelve hits. Showing off their new-found snarl the Devils brought the physicality yesterday, outhitting Utah 28-8 to go along with outshooting them 28-14 in a dominant final forty minutes of the game yesterday. For a long time,the game ground along at 2-0 without much action until another power play in the third period all but sealed it, this time with a vintage tic-tac-toe play from the big names:

Somehow our early success on the power play this season feels infinitely more sustainable than it did last season when we were at 40% before the Dougie Hamilton injury. The puck movement has just been elite on the man advantage though, ironically all it’s been missing to this point have been the Dougie bombs but I’m sure we’ll get that before the season’s over. Ironically the only thing that wasn’t flawless about what turned into a 3-0 shutout was whoever was operating the jumbotron after the game, when it was announced Allen got the first star with twenty saves, someone put up ‘Jacob Markstrom, 33 saves’ on the big board. We happened to have 33 shots on net ourselves, I don’t know what bot or actual human screwed that up as badly as it did but I was so distracted I didn’t even really pay attention to Allen’s on-ice interview, hah.

At least the Devils did what they needed to do in these first five games, get off to a strong start and start to establish good habits in terms of playing within a system and staying disciplined. Once the first line gets clicking, or if changes get made to get production out of more than the 2nd and 3rd lines at even strength, then this team could be a sight to behold. But for now a slight cushion is good, especially with yet another back-to-back trip down to Raleigh from NJ, which seems to be a yearly occurrence. To his immense credit though, coach Sheldon Keefe pooh-pooed the impact of back to backs:

Of course, the back-to-back does mean a likely change in net even off an Allen shutout. Markstrom’s been okay-ish through his first three games but hopefully he can be a wall tonight against a tough opponent.