Fire the coach they said. Everything will be fine, just fire the head coach.
Well, that worked for 40 minutes on Tuesday when the New Jersey Devils held a 2-1 lead heading into the third period with their game against the Vegas Golden Knights.
They did not account for Jonathan Marchessault who struck for a natural hat trick in a 4-3 Vegas win.
Marchessault scored all three goals in the third period to give the Knights a 4-2 lead before the period was half gone.
“It’s good,” Marchessault said of the winning streak. “We didn’t have that all year so far, so it’s good that we get on a roll. The start of the season the past few years have been inconsistent, so it’s fun for us to show some consistency and that we’re a force in the League.”
Malcolm Subban made 32 saves in the win.
“Obviously you get a couple wins you feel better about yourself, you feel good about your game,” Malcolm Subban said. “It’s been great, but there’s still stuff to work on. It’s coming along, so it feels good right now.”
Kyle Palmieri and Jesper Bratt scored for the Devils to help get the 2-1 lead.
“The effort was there, and we had a lead going into the third and knew they’d have a push,” Palmieri said. “We have to make sure we take some positives out of the game. We wanted better out of ourselves in these back-to-backs and moving into this weekend, we’re going to get back to work and expect better out of ourselves.”
Nico Hischier stopped the Marchessault run with a goal at the 10:00 mark of the third period.
“I would say I’m still processing (the day), but I tried to focus on the game and I think we came out really good, but in the third period, we got scored on and it feels like, ‘Not again,'” Hischier said. “It shouldn’t be like that. We’re all mentally strong enough that we know it’s a tie game and we have to play strong.”
Chandler Stephenson also scored for Vegas.
[WATCH:Â All Golden Knights vs. Devils highlights]
Mackenzie Blackwood made 26 saves in the loss.
Alain Nasreddine was behind the bench for the Devils for his first game as head coach.
“It was a lot of emotions all day long,” Nasreddine said. “The game was a lot of fun to be in, obviously. I liked the energy by the team. I really, really liked our first 40 minutes. The third period, it was almost like we ran out of gas a bit. It doesn’t take much in this league for the other team to make you pay for it and that’s what happened.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.