With the upcoming match between the New Jersey Devils and the Carolina Hurricanes, there are a few things to keep in mind.
Diving into the Devils, we’ve got goalkeepers Jacob Markstrom steadily making 77 saves all season, with a nice 90.6% save rate. Jake Allen, though performing better with a 97.4% save rate recently, showed a weaker performance last year with 89.5% save rate. Talking about top players, Stefan Noesen with 2 goals and 4 assists, Paul Cotter with 4 goals and sweet Jesper Bratt making some moves with a goal and three assists are players to watch, they may just carry the Devils on their back.
Switching over to the Hurricanes, Frederik Andersen seems to be shadowing Markstrom with equivalent 90.5% save rates recently and an impressive 93.2% last season. These duel numbers might signal a system glitch, who knows? Top players grabbing our attention include stalwart of the game Jordan Staal, and the surprising Sean Walker standing with 11 goals and 17 assists last season in his name. Although stats of William Carrier and Dmitry Orlov do tell a story, sigh, it's not a fairy tale one.
Walking down the memory lane, past games favor the Hurricanes more, bookending their matches with a 4-2 and a sweet 6-1 win against our Devils. The Devils have been outskating the Canes in the regular season with a record of 4-0-1 to the Canes' 0-0-1, it seems Canes prefer staying at the eye more than the storm this season.
Coming back to the present, recent matches seem to tip in favor of the Devils, with their glorious battles against Utah, Washington, and Buffalo twice, compared to Canes' single victory against New York. Canes have recipes of both victory cake and defeat salad from their recent kitchen, while Devils being choosy and dining on victories more.
So, who's going to come ahead in this clash of the titans? The Hurricanes have an impressive goalkeeper and have shown they can score against the Devils, but the Devils' strength in their top players and recent success gives them quite the edge. If it's a tug of war, neither of them is going to let go of the rope easily.
Albert’s Prediction: New Jersey Devils by 2