WARNINGNYI
Rush defense leaked all night
Gave up 25 rush shots worth 2.48 xG (2 goals) — transition gaps were there every period.
Tighten neutral-zone structure and keep D gaps closed on entries.
The verdict · earned
The Devils earned it — the game and the expected-goals battle both.
NYI 1 · NJD 2
Preseason · exhibition
Split squads and prospects, not the club that will take the ice in October. The shots and grades below describe this game only: nothing here counts toward season records, form, rankings or player numbers.
◆ By the ModelSep 22, 10:37 PMxG: xgboost-0.758Edited for clarityDrafted from NHL play-by-play by Backcheck's model, worded for clarity by an AI editor that may not change a number. Nobody at Backcheck was at the rink. How this works
New Jersey held off a determined push from the Islanders, escaping with a 2-1 win after New York struck first on the power play. Connor Brown's third-period wrist shot from the high slot broke a tie and turned out to be all the Devils would need to see out the final twenty minutes.
C. Eiserman opened the scoring for New York early in the second period, converting a power-play chance set up by V. Dravecký and C. Ritchie. New Jersey answered later in the same period when R. Schmelzer tied it, assisted by B. Steeves and E. Edwards. The Devils then took the lead for good in the third, when Brown's unassisted wrist shot from the slot made it 1-2. D. Rittich was steady behind it, and V. Vanecek kept the Islanders within reach at the other end for most of the night before Brown's goal settled things.
Here's the part of the game the scoreboard doesn't tell you: New Jersey won the high-danger chances 4-1. A one-goal final makes this look like a coin flip, but the chance count says the Devils controlled the dangerous ice for most of the night. The overall shot-attempt battle was close — the Devils held 48% — and expected goals gave New Jersey only a modest edge, 2.96 to 2.51. The gap that actually mattered was off the rush, where the Devils generated 25 rush shots worth 2.48 expected goals against 20 rush shots worth 1.47 allowed the other way.
The goaltending explains why the score wasn't more lopsided than that. D. Rittich stopped 1.51 goals above expected on 24 shots, the best mark either goalie posted, while V. Vanecek was nearly as sharp for New York, saving 0.96 goals above expected on 22 shots. Both teams underperformed their own expected-goal totals against a roughly 2.70-expected-goal league-average game — the Islanders by the wider margin — which says more about two goalies standing tall than about either group of shooters going cold.
The one number that should worry New Jersey: the power play went 0-for-3, a shutout against a league conversion rate near 21%. That's the gap between this being a comfortable win and one that needed a highlight-reel goal from Brown to close it out. New York's power play actually converted at 25% and still lost — a reminder that a game even in the shot-attempt column can still be decided by who owns the high-danger chances and who gets the better goaltending.