Devils admit early ‘jitters’ in sloppy Game 1 loss

After the Devils‘ first playoff game since 2018 ended with a humbling loss to the New York Rangers on Tuesday night, New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff sought a silver lining.

“The good thing is that now everybody has a game under their belt,” he said.

The Devils fell 5-1 to the rival Rangers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference opening-round series at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

During this past regular season — the most successful in franchise history — New Jersey was a young, flashy offensive team that overwhelmed opponents with its speed. But the experienced Rangers frustrated the Devils with physical play and layers of defense, and goalie Igor Shesterkin did the rest, finishing with 27 saves for New York.

“We’re not gonna blow it up,” Devils defenseman Ryan Graves said. “It’s one game. We’ll probably chalk that one up to not being the way you want to start the playoffs. We’ve got a lot of young guys. There’s probably a lot of jitters. I think it might be understated how nervous you are to start. You don’t know what to expect.”

The Devils’ first 10 minutes were disastrous. They failed to register a shot on two early power plays, while the Rangers built a 2-0 lead in the first 9:30 of the game — including a power-play goal by Chris Kreider, one of his two goals on the night.

“I think the first 10 minutes, when you get two power plays and you don’t execute, I just thought we had the jitters,” Ruff said. “We didn’t handle the puck well. We had three or four shot attempts that we missed the next by a large margin. I think when you missed those opportunities, it kind of fueled them.”

The Devils were 0-for-4 on the power play in the contest. Their lone goal came on a Jack Hughes penalty shot in the third period.

New Jersey goalie Vitek Vanecek gave up four goals on 22 shots.

“There are probably a couple goals that he would like back. But I think he was like the rest of the team,” Ruff said of Vanecek. “Our power play didn’t execute. Our penalty killing didn’t execute. When you look at our group as a whole, it was a missed opportunity to set the tone inside the game that we didn’t set.”

Game 2 between the Devils and Rangers is scheduled for Thursday in Newark.

“You gotta be at your best, and I don’t believe we were at our best today,” Devils forward Erik Haula said. “You can look at the reasons, but the bottom line is that we lost the first one at home. And pretty quickly we’re already focused on Game 2, and we need to win that one.”