Devils v Florida Preview

Chris (00:02)
Yo yo yo, what is up Devil fans, this is Chris from the Uncle Pucker New Jersey Devil Podcast doing our quick preview for tonight's huge ass game against the Stanley Cup Champions, Florida Panthers. A show, brand new Uncle Pucker show is dropping this morning so be sure to check that out where we break down the overtime win against the Islanders.

the rough go of it against the sharks and then a look ahead at these next three games down in florida which i believe are gonna tell us a whole lot about where this team is right now and i think we'll be able to take a like a serious sober kind of look at this team after these next three games and say yeah they still need some work and they're not

quite there yet and it might take another year or two or maybe these guys can can do something here but you know again it's three games it's early in the season it is kind of hard to still kind of gauge where these devils are I like what I see so far I think the effort has been there more nights than not it's just not always the results and that's where a team learns how to win where they

These are all just part of the growing up as a team into a winning franchise too. And the team that they can really model themselves after is the Florida Panthers. mean, this is a team from top to bottom. Everything about these guys, I love the way they're run. I love the way they play. Let's break down some numbers, okay? So tonight's game is down in Miami or Sunrise at Emerit Bank Arena at 7 PM.

the Panthers right now are 11-3-1 they have 23 points their first in the Atlantic surprise surprise surprise last game was Saturday night where they beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in goals four they have 58 goals four that's good for sixth in the league and 46 goals against and that's 13th right around middle of the pack goals against which is

Kinda odd that their goaltending hasn't really stepped up and if you look at the numbers between Bobrovsky and Knight and we'll get into these real quick. Markey and Allen are, they do have better numbers against, than those guys do. They have some dogs on Florida, we know that, right? Sam Reinhart, totally, he leads the team. He's got 23 points with 11 goals, 12 assists. Sam Bennett has got nine and six for 15.

points you got Barkov who's got seven I'm sorry he's only played seven games and he has two and ten for twelve points Verhege has twelve points Matthew Kachuk has ten points Anton Lindell has fourteen points plus they're coached by a Hall of Famer in Paul Maurice he does a fantastic job of getting the best out of this team so

They have, look, they're just the gold standard, right? They're the Kansas City Chiefs, they're the New England Patriots. This is the team that 31 other teams aspire to be like. So this is gonna say a lot about where these devils stand. The Cats winning percentage right now is at a 767. That's good for third in the league.

Man, there's not much bad you can say about these guys, right? They're 25 % on their power play, which is good for 7th in the league. They're 86.7 % on the penalty kill, which is good for 5th in the league. They're top 10 in everything. Team save percentage is 893. That's 15th in the league.

Now let's just talk real quick about the goalie situation, right? Bobrovsky right now is 8-2 and 1. He has an 895 save percentage and a 295 goals against average. His goals against average is down below 3, but that save percentage is just a tick under 900. Where Spencer Knight has only played 4 games as the understudy there to Bobrovsky. He's 3 and 1. He's sitting at a 902 save percentage and a 2.79 goals against average.

New Jersey as a team are 28.3 % on the power play, that's good for fifth, juxtapose that with the 25 % and seventh for Florida. So New Jersey has the edge on the power play advantage. New Jersey is 85.1 % on the penalty kill, which is good for sixth, where the Florida Panthers, like I said, are 86.7, so that's good for fifth. So we are a tick under them in the PK.

And they take above them in the power play Team save percentage like I said, Florida is 15th with an 893 the Devils are 11 with a 900 even So special teams pretty much our wash right Devils are slightly better on the power play. The cats are slightly better on the PK Devils have a little bit of an advantage on team save percentage and the goalies are all kind of right there I mean Alan

Is 3 2 & 1 he has two shutouts this year he's a 914 save percentage and a 2 3 5 goals against we know we're gonna see Alan one game we just don't know which one I would expect it'll be Thursday night Markie will get the Get the call tonight Markie is 7 4 & 1 he has one shutout and Markstrom sitting at a 902 save percentage and a 267 goals against

So Markstrom and Spencer Knight both have a 902 save percentages except Spencer Knights played four games and Markstrom has played 12 That's the numbers, okay, that's what we can look forward to as far as the numbers What do they all mean? Who the hell knows? Nothing everything I don't know what I do know is that this game is big and The Devils are going to have to play a full 60 minutes and we've seen it

that they have the they they have the team they have the structure they have the a lot of those pieces they can play a full sixty minute game I mean even look at that San Jose shark game San Jose was skating their asses off I don't I can't look at that game walking away from a one nothing loss and going I can't believe we blew it to the shitty sharks and shitty sharks it's kind of fun to say anyway

You know Devils played terrible. They didn't deserve it. Don't they they played really good and like we said in the in the show that just dropped today, Mackenzie Blackwood was not going to be denied. He wanted that shutout I mean this guy can go and get blown out the entire season the rest of the year and I think that he'll look back on that game Sunday night at the Rock and That's his Stanley Cup right beating us not just beating us

Getting us a shutout, getting a shutout against us. But I thought the Devils played good. You also take a look at, you know, the Islander game. You know, I didn't like the fact that we were down two goals in the third, but we were able to rally back and get the game winner in overtime. I think that's huge. And it says a lot about this team. I think this team plays really hard for Sheldon Keefe. I think Sheldon Keefe has a really nice pulse on where this team is right now. I think he will have them ready.

for these games against florida look this is you know expect tonight to kind of be the appetizer for thursday night so today it might be a little feeling out a little early expected to get chippy i do not think these teams like each other we know matthew kuchuk and nico he sure can stand each other so is kuchuk gonna take any liberties on the captain going into this game when you have guys like brendan dylan and

Mason and codder and McDermott all in the lineup this thing could get chippy quick and then you expect that to kind of Roll over into Thursday when they play again and that game can just be completely off the charts, but it starts tonight Just play the 60 minutes. I don't know if they're gonna win. I I'm not predicting predicting shit I did say on the show just for You know The sake of the show that I doubt that the Devils would go in and win both of these I really don't know

You just want a good showing, know you win or lose. This is going to tell you where where you are. What needs to be improved upon and and where this team is going to move on going forward. So look, that's basically the breakdown for tonight. I expect a fun game. I expect a good game. I expect a physical game. And the Devils have every. They have all the pieces in place that they can win this.

But you you're talking about a team that's just loaded. They know they there, you know what? They're just that team that knows how to win, right? You watch the cans. I mentioned the Kansas City Chiefs, right? Any any football fan? You go back to Sunday, right? Denver had them dead to rights. There was no way in hell that the Chiefs were going to win that game. And then, you know, something that happens all the time in professional football, a blocked field goal. And what the fuck is that? And the Kansas City Chiefs end up winning the game.

Because certain teams it just they have that aura. They know what they're doing They there is no Position. I mean look the chief game. Yeah, that was extremely lucky. I don't want to say lucky but it was again It's good teams being coached well and players that buy in and do the right thing Florida Panthers gold standard New Jersey Devils want to be like them. Well, this is the chance Okay, this is the opportunity you have to be like them go out there

and beat the bar to panthers hopefully two games and then you can have your revenge game on saturday against the lightning who right now are not playing the best hockey in the n.h.l. and they've come into your barn and embarrass you and jake allen so that's a whole revenge game but that's you know that's a ways away this one tonight

Buckle up boys and girls because this is a fun one. This is so far I think the best game of the season. This road trip should be a ton of fun and it should really kind of set up. I think the next quarter third of the season and where this team is going to go. mean not to look too far ahead but let's look too far ahead. Right. We've got the cats. We've got the cats. We've got the lightning the hurricanes the capitals. I think those are the next five. Those are brutal games against really

really good teams there all eastern conference teams to have the metropolitan division teams this is going to be a a good stretch of hockey here and we'll see how the devs any thoughts anything that you guys are interested in talking about you can always find us on social you can always drop us a line you can contact us at the uncle puckers dot com we also the uncle puckers at gmail dot com

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let's go devils huge game tonight the uncle parkers will be back on wednesday we're going to talk about this game that happens later we will preview a little bit of thursday's rematch and hopefully it's not a revenge game thursday don't get the win tonight and let florida worry about revenge on thursday that's it for us guys enjoy the rest of your day and we'll talk to you soon let's go devils