Bruins vs. Devils 12/31/19 PREVIEW: A Matinee to close out 2019

Just the Facts:

The Time: 1pm EST

The Place: Prudential Center, Newark, NJ

Place to Watch: NESN, Sportsnet, TVAS, MSG

Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub

Opposing SBNation Blog: All About The Jersey

Know Your Enemy:

• Their best player in Taylor Hall just recently was headed out to the desert to [checks notes] ...two above average wins to be top of their division. Huh.
• With Hall running off to sandier pastures, the best player left on the Devils is Kyle Palmieri, who leads the team in goals with 15, and points with 27.
• The big assist getter for the Devils is Nikita Gusev, who’s 15 puts him on par with Sami Vatanen.
• Saying that there is a starting goaltender of note for the Devils feels wrong, so Mackenzie Blackwood is one of the many condemned souls who must pass for one. He has a .906 SV% in 26 starts.

Game Preview:

Good morning! Welcome to New Jersey! Our Condolences on making this place the sight for your new year’s eve!

New Jersey is in that weird spot where they’re unflinchingly racing towards the bottom after hitting the reset button and launching Taylor Hall into the sun, but have at least enough talent and fight to go accidentally win a game here or there, or at least get some points by dragging their opponent to overtime, and while they’ve been unsurprisingly getting savaged every few games or so, the most recent slant has had them either come back to win or come back and fall just short.

What a perfect time for a team missing almost half it’s back-end to stagger into town.

This is gonna be an important game for the B’s to assess the kind of players they actually have on their depth chart so far; they’re down a lot of their own defense, and learned that David Krejci is going to be missing today’s contest due to another injury. The B’s are almost certainly going to be doing some line shuffling.

How this will go? Is anyone’s guess.