Devils advance to second round with shutout win over Rangers

The Devils only needed to keep doing what they were doing to close this game out, and while it wasn’t to perfection, they still didn’t fully sit back and kept the Rangers stars contained. However, it wasn’t without controversy, as Jacob Trouba absolutely rocked Timo Meier with a big hit, leaving him on the ice after some head contact, and he eventually went to the dressing room. Meier did return, but it still brought up a conversation about how even if the hit was clean by the rulebook, maybe it shouldn’t be.

They could breathe a sigh of relief late in the third as Erik Haula gave them a 3-0 lead off a pass from Jack Hughes on a 3-on-1 opportunity for the Devils, and that was just about it. Jesper Bratt got his first of the series with an empty net goal a couple minutes later, and that 4-0 goal held for the final score. Palat and Marino led the way in scoring for the Devils with two assists each, while Akira Schmid was excellent in net, stopping all 31 shots to give him his first career playoff shutout.

With that, the Devils advance to the second round for the first time since 2011-12, and end what was the third-longest playoff series win drought entering the playoffs, and the second-longest after the Toronto Maple Leafs won their series over the Tampa Bay Lightning. They will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round, an opponent they’ve faced four times in their history, most recently in 2009 in the first round, which the Hurricanes won in seven games.

The Rangers head home early in disappointment after buying big at the deadline in hopes of replicating their run to the Eastern Conference Final last season. They’ll have about $10 million in cap space with Alexis Lafreniere and K’Andre Miller being the member of their core in need of a new contract in the offseason, so they may only be able to bring back a couple of Vladimir Tarasenko, Patrick Kane, Tyler Motte, Niko Mikkola, and Jaroslav Halak, depending on the amount of money they want.