Game Preview #81: New Jersey Devils vs. Ottawa Senators

NEWARK, NJ - MARCH 23: New Jersey Devils center Dawson Mercer (91) and New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes (86) share a laugh in warm ups before a game between the Ottawa Senators and New Jersey Devils on March 23, 2024 at Prudential Center in the Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Andrew Mordzynski/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The Matchup The New Jersey Devils (41-36-3) versus the Ottawa Senators (43-27-10)

The Time: 7:00 PM EDT

The Broadcast: TV — MSGSN2; Radio — Devils Hockey Network

The End

Happy final Sunday of the 2025-26 New Jersey Devils season. This is our final home game until September, and the Devils are giving us a real treat to mark the end of this season: the last use of the “Jersey Jersey” designed like a crossover of a Los Angeles Kings jersey with a linesman uniform.

I am glad to see the Jersey Jersey go away. Maybe it’s just associating the Devils with an uptick in losing since their record-setting 52-win season, and maybe it’s the goaltender the team traded for and signed to a bad extension saying he cannot see the puck through the jersey pants. But I enjoy seeing the Devils wear red at home, or at least white throwbacks, or green. The idea of a black alternate was always intriguing, but the execution here was poor. If this is the last time I see it on the ice, I would be pretty happy.

Nico Daws to Start, Topias Vilen to Play

While the Devils called up two more from the Utica Comets to play at the end of the season, neither were on the ice yesterday. Jake Allen played a very solid game in net, to his credit, while Dennis Cholowski continued to play on a pairing with Johnny Kovacevic. Tim recapped that game for us, and while Cholowski actually did his job pretty well (a rarity since his first NHL appearance of the season against the Kings), it should be his last game in a Devils uniform.

Nico Daws, meanwhile, should be getting the second half of this back-to-back. Since being relegated to the AHL for the most part at the start of the 2024-25 season, Daws has a .945 save percentage and 1.49 goals against average in seven NHL games. That’s pretty good! I would think that, if he was so out of his depth in the NHL, he would be sitting a bit lower than a .945 save percentage over scattered use. Jumping from the AHL to the NHL is not easy with the differences in speed and the quality of shooters, but the AHL has its own problems for goaltenders with the proliferation of grinders and poorer defense.

I am excited to see Daws share the ice with Vilen, and I hope they give the 23-year old defenseman a good pairing to work on. As Tim mentioned last night, the Dillon-Nemec pairing has been a really tough watch. He wrote:

Dillon and Nemec are one of the worst positional D pairs I have ever seen. Both routinely over commit at both blue lines and get burned for odd mans the other way. I am going to write about personnel for next season, and I think I’ve had enough of both of them. I realize Dillon is a great dude and has an element we lack, but if you’re going to be a “defensive defenseman” than maybe do it. It’s like the are actively trying to sabotage each other.

I have thought about this as well. I think the Dillon-Hamilton pairing worked so well last season because it was effectively chaotic. If an opponent skater did not keep their head up, Brenden Dillon might blow them up at center ice. But go the other way, and they had 6’7” Dougie Hamilton in their business. Those two were made for quick strikes back at the other team, with Dougie’s slap shot and Dillon’s eagerness to rush up the ice. But Simon Nemec is not Dougie Hamilton. He does not use a 6’7” frame to seal off the wall and reach out to disturb puck carriers. He’s smaller, slower, and plays more like a rover. He totally lacks physicality away from the net, too, so pairing him with a defensive guy like Dillon who plays his best defense by jumping the play before it happens is a recipe for disaster more often than not.

Tonight, I think a Vilen-Nemec second pairing and a Dillon-Kovacevic third pairing would be a smart choice. The Devils have nothing to gain in the standings by winning, so holding the veterans up for more ice time is unnecessary. I would much rather see what Vilen and Nemec can do against guys like Brady Tkachuk than I want to see Vilen play 10 minutes against Lars Eller and Nick Cousins. In the AHL, Vilen has arguably been Utica’s steadiest defenseman since Kevin Bahl graduated to the NHL, and he has done so while being a decent point producer. He might have shown more promise at a younger age in that area, but he has not fallen to pure shutdown levels of offense.

Different Bottom Six Look, Please

While this does not really matter, I am really not seeing what there is to be gained out of giving Marc McLaughlin and Brian Halonen more looks with Paul Cotter. I do not think that line has really worked much at all, and I would rather see Maxim Tsyplakov in the lineup so he can get an actual chance on the third line with Cody Glass and Lenni Hameenaho. Nick Bjugstad is still a good enough player to have in the bottom six, but I would rather see Tsyplakov-Glass-Hameenaho and Cotter-Bjugstad-Halonen/McLaughlin than the paradigm Keefe has been running with lately.

Your Thoughts

What do you think of tonight’s game? Will you be watching? What do you think of Vilen and Daws? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.