In Anaheim Friday night, the Ducks were looking to build on a two-game streak against a New Jersey Devils team that had seemingly rediscovered its game over the last two weeks.
It was not the matchup expected as the Ducks played a dominant game in routing the Devils, 5-1.
Jakob Silfverberg scored twice for the Ducks who scored four straight after yielding a tying goal from the Devils in the fist.
“It means a lot for the confidence,” Silfverberg said. “You have to string games together and play well in bunches. You can’t play one good game and take a couple of games off. It brings a lot of confidence to the team, and we need it, for sure, going into tomorrow in a tough building.”
Ilya Bryzgalov got the win, his first in his return to the Ducks organization. He was not terribly busy through the first forty minutes of the game in facing just six New Jersey shots.
“Right now the team got two points with me,” Bryzgalov said. “I’m part of the team.”
Devils netminder Cory Schneider was playing in his league-leading 40th game of the season but was injured in the first period on a shot from Matt Beleskey.
Keith Kinkaid took over for Schneider in the second period.
“I thought he handled it as well as he could,” Lamoriello said of Kinkaid. “It’s tough going in like that without getting any warm-up or any shots. That’s part of the game. You have to be ready when called upon.”
The Ducks defense limited New Jersey to one shot in the first period.
“The team played tremendously in front of me,” Bryzgalov said. “They battled hard and made my job really easy tonight. I really appreciated it.”
The third period saw the Devils ramp up the offense with nine shots.
“[That’s] a team that’s probably the best team in the NHL right now,” New Jersey center Scott Gomez said of Anaheim. “They were all over us from the start. We shied away from making it into a game. You make a little mistake here and there and they’re going to capitalize. That was the difference. You come out of this and learn.
“Maybe we got a little too cute again. That team just [can’t] wait to pick you apart. We should have been a little more north-and-south.”
After defeating the Los Angeles Kings earlier in the week, the loss to the Ducks was a reminder of how far the Devils have sunk and how far they still need to go.
“You can definitely say it’s a step back,” Devils’ forward Tom Sestito said. “The third period, we came out pretty good, which is how we should have been playing the whole game, I think. We’ve got to take that and salvage a trip in San Jose [on Monday].”
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