There was almost no point to even show up in St. Louis for the New Jersey Devils. They basically didn’t anyway. It was probably the ugliest game of the season for them as a whole.
They let a guy who hasn’t scored in 20-plus games get a goal, and allowed Patrick Maroon to join Ilya Kovalchuk and Zach Parise as former Devils to score against them in the span of a week.
Are injuries to blame for an atrocious effort like this? The answer could go both ways. They certainly miss the reigning MVP of the NHL in Taylor Hall, who is missing his 21st straight game.