Devils 1, Stars 0, Final: Nick Palmeri Scores Powerplay Game Winner For Devils

All it took was a Nick Palmeri powerplay goal with 5:37 left in the third period to give the New Jersey Devils a 1-0 lead over the Dallas Stars in Dallas on Tuesday night. Johan Hedberg earned his third shutout of the season, on a relatively easy 19 save performance while Dallas’ Keri Lehtonen made 22 saves in the losing effort.

The story of this game was the relative lack of offense from both teams. The teams combined for 42 shots with the Devils outshooting the Stars 23-19 in the game. At no point during the game did a team register double digit shots in a single period. Both teams had their chance on the powerplay with New Jersey being the only team that capitalized on the man advantage on their fourth chance of the night.

Neither the Dallas Stars nor the New Jersey Devils can really get much going through two periods on offense. The Stars and Devils have combined for a total of 28 shots, with each team having 14. Both goaltenders, Johan Hedberg and Kari Lehtonen, as we said in the last update, haven’t had to do much work in the game as both offenses are not challenging the goaltenders. Eighteen players have registered a shot in this game with no player having more than two shots on goal.

The hitting discrepancy is still going on through two periods. The Stars are outhitting the Devils 21-10 with three players registering three hits a piece for the Stars: Brendan Morrow, Steve Ott, and Tomas Vincour. The Devils have two players with multiple hits: Anton Volchenkov with three and Brian Rolston with two.

The Devils and Stars skated to a seamless and fairly methodical first period that featured a total of 17 shots and no goals on the scoreboard. The New Jersey Devils are outshooting the Stars 9-8 in the period and both goaltenders, Johan Hedberg for the Devils and Kari Lehtonen for the Stars, haven’t had to stand on their head to make all 17 saves. Only Rod Pelley and Brian Rolston have more than one shot on net, they each have two.

The Dallas Stars are hitting a lot more, which can be a flawed stat, outhitting the New Jersey Devils 14-5 in the first period. Brenden Morrow has three hits and leads the Stars in that category in the first period while nine players total have hits for the Stars in the game thus far. For the Devils, only Volchenkov has more than one hit and four players total have hits in the game.

Devils coach Jacques Lemaire was not entertained with the bad practice and morning skate the Devils have put forth in the last few days. He cancelled the morning skate after a few minutes and had a closed door meeting with the players. Here is what had to say about the players play:

The Devils need to win practically every game from here on out to win and Lemaire needs to make sure that his players are in top shape for every game.