Lovejoy gets his first goal in a chippy Devils win

Ben Lovejoy (Photo by Jeff Auger – Double G Media)

Tuesday was Ben Lovejoy’s night, finally scoring his first goal of the season, 24 games in.  In addition to the rare goal by “The Reverend” he had his signed puck given away during a TV timeout “Movie Challenge” where the lucky fan correctly guessed Animal House.  While Lovejoy is not a point accumulator he is a strong defenseman who hits hard and blocks shots, something the Devils have been missing in prior seasons and were in desperate need of going into the 2016-17 season.

The former Penguin seems to rubbing of on his fellow teammates as the Devils are starting to play more physical hockey and had one of their most physical games against the Vancouver Canucks in a rare regulation win (the Devils have the most overtime games so far, this year).  The chippy game started with words and strong hits in the first period that resulted in a few broken-up scuffles.  Towards the end of the first period Travis Zajac was cross-checked into the boards by Cancuks by Michael Chaput.

However, the refs decided the hit was not worthy of a penalty and that enraged defenseman John Moore who went to have words with Chaput during the timeout to attend to Zajac.  Moore ended with a ten-minute misconduct, a five-minute penalty for fighting and a two-minute penalty for instigating.  The un-penalized hit on Zajac also resulted in a bench minor because of Coach Hynes discussion with the refs that he took full accountability on during the press conference after the game stating “that one was on me”.

In the second a hit on Philip Larsen by the Devils Taylor Hall stopped the game for several minutes as Larsen lay still on the ice and was removed by a stretcher.  Larsen had to be removed by a stretcher but was released and medically cleared on Wednesday afternoon from a local hospital.

While the hits continued to be solid the chippiness did subside after the hit on Larsen but it did show an intensity that past Devils teams have lacked and it is something the fans have been asking for.  While no one wants to see injuries the hard play the Devils showed last night energized their home crowd and showed they are definite playoff contenders this year.