Sunday, September 22nd, 2024, the Devils hosted the New York Islanders at the Prudential Center, in Newark New Jersey. The night began with a strong warmup, some vets, some newbies, all coming together to play as a team for the first time this year.
Unfortunately the team was missing fan favorites Jack Hughes, Luke Hughes, and Timo Meier; despite this, the crowd was pleasantly surprised with the appearance of new rookies and the return of Dougie Hamilton—who was previously out for a torn pectoral muscle.
To kick off the pre-season, 2 minutes in, captain Nico Hischier scored a power-play goal on the Islanders, assisted by Jesper Bratt, one of the highest scoring players in the NHL throughout the 23-24 season. Ending the period after a strong start of 1-0, with goalie Jacob Markstrom (trade acquired from Calgary Flames) with a bountiful of big saves.
Beginning the 2nd period, the Islanders answered back, bringing the heat. Seven minutes into the period, Anders Lee (assisted by Wahlstrom) of the Islanders scored a quick goal right through Markstrom’s legs. This brought the game to 1-1. The intensity grew throughout the arena. Not losing hope, moments later, Bratt once again delivered, scoring an unassisted goal to make the score 2-1, giving them a leg up as the game continued on. The Islanders were not very happy with this, and Julien Gauthier (assisted by Tsyplakov and MacLean) ended up scoring about 9 minutes after Bratt. Once again, the period came to an end with a tie score of 2-2.
As the 3rd period began, the energy in the Prudential Center was electric. Fans screaming, cheers roaring, and most of all the hard scraping of blades clashing against the ice in hopes of putting a small black circle through a red rimmed net. With a slapshot to the upper deck, Camden Thiesing (assisted by Pelech) gave the Islanders the lead, making the score 2-3. In hope of taking the game back into their own hands, the Devils decided to pull goalie Nico Daws, leaving the net wide and open for the Islanders to score on. Unfortunately this didn’t work out the way, we would have hoped it would have, Holmstrom of the Islanders scoring an open net goal shortly after the removal of goaltending for an extra man on offense. The game ultimately came to an end after a strong fight between both teams, with a final score of 2-4 Islanders bringing a victory home to Long Island.
