NJD v SJS Preview

Chris (00:01)
Hello there, Devil fans. so this is a preview video for tonight's San Jose Shark Game, but we do have to just quickly talk about last night's game against the Islanders, the 4-3 overtime victory. So look.

Devil fans, before you start your day today, whenever you listen to this video, whenever you go out and whatever, you go into the bars to watch some football games, you're gonna watch the Giants at 9.30, whatever the case is, I just want all devil fans to just stop.

Close your eyes, bow your head, and just send a bunch of good vibes to Mrs. Jack and Luke's mother, because we are so lucky to have not one, but two Luke Hughes, or two Hughes boys on this team for the foreseeable future. This, I thought that Luke played a fantastic game against the Islanders on that blue line, and what can you say about Jack? Another three point game.

I mean he's just playing on a different level right now and it is a lot of fun to see so the fact that we have two Hughes on the Devils We are extremely lucky so to Mr.. And Mrs.. Hughes for making those wonderful hockey players We as devil fans appreciate the hell out of you, so thank you for that

So the Devils coming off a nice big win on the island. head back home to face the San Jose Sharks. The bad, but shall I say frisky San Jose Sharks. I have watched a couple of their games and Macklin Celebrini is gonna be a dude. I mean, he is the real deal right now. He's got three goals in three games. It's pretty impressive to watch, but...

you're gonna have to watch out for him. the Sharks are 4-9-2 with 10 points so far this year, 7th in the Pacific Division. Last year they finished up 19-54 and 9th for 47 points, so they're bad.

We knew they were going to be bad. They're in the process of rebuilding. They have a lot of really good young talent. They do have some veterans sprinkled in there to kind of help these young guys out. think they do. I think they have a decent lineup. Like I don't hate this team. And if we go by the old adage of former New Jersey Devil players that come out and kill us whenever we play them, well, then we're in trouble tonight because

Fabian Zetterlin, Tyler Tefoli, maybe just even get Vitek Vanochek and Mackenzie Blackwood all in on the action. They should all score goals against us tonight. So we're in trouble. That's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. Devils are on a three game win streak. The first one this year. And not to mention they win tonight, not to jinx anything, but we're playing the Sharks, so I don't give a shit if I throw it out in the atmosphere. But this will be the first four game winning streak.

that the Devils have had since the 112 point season. So yeah, just suck on that for a little while. All last year we couldn't string together four goddamn wins in a row. And now they're on the verge. However many games into the season that we are, 16, 15, but again.

The Sharks are not very good. Their last game, they lost 5-2 to the Minnesota Wild. Their 30th in goals for this year with 36. They are 29th in goals against with 56. They do have some guys, you know, that I like watching. know, Marcus Grandlin is leading them with 16 points. has 6 goals, 10 assists.

Tifoli has got 6-5 for 11, Fabian Zetterlin has got 6-4 for 10, and Macklin Zalabrini has got 3-3, which is pretty impressive. Three goals in three games, I should say. What's not so impressive is the sloppy seconds, well I should say the VTEC Vanochek and Mackenzie Blackwood are the Jersey Devils. Hand Me Downs, so the Sharks have

the sloppy seconds on this. Vtech is 2-5 and 0 with an 898 save percentage and a 332 goals against average. And Mackenzie Blackwood is 2-4 and 2 at 894 save percentage and 352 goals against average. They're the same guys, same records, same everything. And we know that. If there's one thing the Devils should have, no problem on the scouting department, it should be against these two dudes. But...

I'm not going to put a lot of blame on them. mean, San Jose is young. They don't play great defense. They leave these guys hanging out to dry. I watched a game the other night and VTEC Manichek absolutely stole it. He's stood on his head. And so it's possible that one of these guys, Blackwood has had some fantastic games as a shark. So this is absolutely possible that they can come into this building, put up a good effort and make the Devils have a long night.

I don't think that's gonna happen. All right, San Jose in the power play 17.4 % that's good for 19th in the league the penalty kill is 81.7 % at 17th in the league. Their power play percentage is down in the lower end of the league, but they're pretty much right there on special teams. they can't really complain if you're the Sharks with what you have right there on special teams, but maybe you can.

complain about the minus 19 goal differential that they have, which is good for 31st in the league. So you're the first loser on that one. Again, Devils were being led in goals by Nico Heasher with 10. In assists so far with Brat, he has 14. And our plus minus, Kovacevic is leading the league in plus minus with plus 11 and leading the team

InjustAwesomeness is number 86, Jackyus. I mean, just the last two games. I just, I can't, just... Yeah. Yeah. He's a fuckin' stud.

The Devils are 10-5-2 with 22 points and a plus 14 goal differential. That's good for seventh in the league. They're still hanging out. On fifth on the power play, 29.4 and eighth in the penalty kill at 84.1. Okay. Devils have coming off a emotional...

Divisional win on the island last night against the Islanders. I mean look you're down two goals in the third period played a offensively played a pretty solid game Too many defensive brain farts throughout the game that the Islanders did not miss on they capitalized on a lot and I thought that Jacob Marksman played a really solid game You can't really blame him for any of those goals, but the defense was just leaving them out to dry on a few occasions

And like I said, the Islanders were able to capitalize, but the Devils were not going to be denied last night. No, not in that third period between Dawson Mercer, Jack Hughes and Stefan Nason. mean, just coming back from those two goals, that just showed you what kind of team this was. They've been fighting and scratching and clawing all year. They've been, they've had a couple of clunkers, but every team does.

And they've been really playing kind of, you know, trying to figure out the system, trying to figure out where they're, you know, we said a lot last year on guys didn't seem to have a defined role on where it is that they were supposed to be, what their objective was, what it was that Lindy Ruff as a coach was looking for. I don't see that at all this year. I see, I see 18 guys with a purpose. I see 18 guys that know exactly what they're going to

to

We're not gonna have this again. I'm just gonna finish this thing right now on a beautiful little breakaway with a beautiful pass from Dougie Hamilton So like Dougie you do that stuff and no one's gonna say shit about your defense. So just keep that up Could not be happier and more excited about the way that that game played out last night and there's a ton that we can nitpick about right we can talk about the bad defensive stuff and and maybe we'll get into that when we record the next Uncle Pucker show which will probably be in

Monday or Tuesday where we'll recap both of these games. But if ever there was a trap game, this is a trap game. Don't get too fucking high on what happened last night. This is not a good team. This is a young team. Devils should be able to skate up and down. The San Jose Sharks are going to create a ton of turnovers. right? They're very bad defensively. The Devils should be able to basically live the entire 60 minutes in the Sharks.

shark zone and just be able to continually put pressure on blackwood and or vanachek whoever's in goal and the devils should be able to win this thing and i'm not saying that the sharks aren't going to get a couple but this should be a game where the devils this game should not be in doubt from the time that the puck drops until the final whistle blows the devils should have this thing in total control now we said it says a lot about a team how they did last night against the islanders right coming back

two goals down in the third winning it in overtime showed a lot this is also gonna show a lot and not just whether you win or lose but how you play this game how do you look coming off that big win is it are you a rubber band that's gonna snap right back into place and say yeah okay last night was a big win but we have another game tonight and we have to straighten our shit out we got to figure you know and go in there take this game seriously and go get a dub on home ice

Or were you out partying in Long Island last night looking at the schedule and saying it's just the Sharks? Well, just the Sharks beat you on December 1st, 6-3 last year. Now, we did say, right, they won 19 games last year. You were one of them. You came back and beat them in February 27, 7-2. But that's four points you should have had and you ended up getting two. And the last year's season, you had 81 points. They had 47.

They had excuses, we had injuries. I mean, they had youth and we had excuses and injuries, but this is... These teams this year are on completely different trajectories. Like San Jose is figuring it out, the Devils seem to have figured it out. So don't fuck around with the Sharks. That's the best advice that I can give here. That's the biggest key to this game. Don't fuck around with the Sharks. Go in, keep your head down, play Devil Hockey.

and beat these guys beat these guys post to post for 60 minutes put it in bed you have a huge road trip coming out again we talked about like that anaheim game a game that you can kind of a team that you can kind of throw into the the mix with the san jose sharks right the the younger teams the bottom feeders and we talked about beating them and devils beat them i think it was six one or six two before they headed out into that western canadian road trip and we said that that game was huge to

build some momentum going out there and it was huge and ended up being a successful road trip. This game can kind of be the same catapult because the Devils are heading down to Florida to play two against the Champs and one against the Lightning who embarrass you in your building the last time you played. So those are six possible points against two really, really solid teams. I know Tampa's not playing it right now, but you can't take them for granted. They're perennial.

playoff contender with one of the best goalies in the world and then you have the champs who just you know what can you say about them they're fantastic team they're well coached they get contributions from up and down their lineup and it's going to be two teams and not to mention you're playing back-to-back games against the Panthers in their barn on Tuesday and Thursday so you can expect that by Thursday they should

Really start to hate each other and that chippiness should really start to come into play in that second game So that's gonna be a really fun series. Don't look forward Focus on the sharks tonight two points up for grabs go get them Devils Again Devils three in a row. I think they're winners of what five of their last six or four at our last five something like that Doesn't really matter wherever you're listening to us just

you know, a like, a download, whatever you're doing. So we appreciate it. If you guys want, I don't have any on me right now and I'm not getting enough to get one. But an Uncle Pucker, New Jersey Devil podcast sticker. All you have to do is go to the unclepuckers.com. Go to the contact me section, put your info in and I will send them out. I got a couple going in the mail tomorrow.

So thank you so much for listening. Let us know what you guys think about the Islander win last night or what to look forward to on this shark game. And we will be back with a full podcast at the end of the weekend to recap these two and the upcoming road trips. So we appreciate you guys. Thanks so much. Let's go Devils.