The New Jersey Devils finished their homestand on Thanksgiving Eve against the St. Louis Blues. On the heels of (another) Simon Nemec overtime winner, the Devils won 3-2 — their 10th straight home game with a point to start the season. That’s a franchise record.
Related: Devils Defeat Blues 3-2 in Overtime
Markstrom Looked Great
Coming into the night, Jacob Markstrom had allowed 3+ goals in eight of nine starts. Despite giving up three against Detroit, he looked much more like himself, stealing the game for the Devils after they were caved in for the last two periods.
Tonight, he was locked in once again. The start didn’t seem that way, at least analytically, as he gave up a goal to Cam Fowler that had a 1% chance of going in, per Moneypuck. But what the analytics don’t tell you is that Markstrom was screened by defenseman Colton White. It also appeared to take a slight redirection. Markstrom himself referred to it as a “flukey” goal after the game.
His second (and final) goal against was a picture-perfect snipe by Robert Thomas on the power play. Not many goalies would have stopped it. He then proceeded to stop the following 17 shots, finishing with a .917 save percentage. That marks the first time this season that he’s posted back-to-back games of .900%+.
“It feels good,” said Markstrom. “It’s a lot easier when we play a really good system game and blocking a lot of shots (…) You know, it was a rocky start with injuries, and you know, those happen. You just try to find a way. With the Olympic break, it’s not a lot of practice time. So we haven’t had many practices at all. When you’re injured and try to find your game, feel good and get back healthy, it’s a little tougher. You almost [have] got to do it during games, which is tough.”
Over these last couple games, he’s now stopped 54 of 59 shots (.915%). And history shows that he’s always adequately bounced back from similarly rough stretches.
Jacob Markstrom has had some difficult stretches since he joined Calgary:
3/17/21-4/5/21: 1-7-0, 29 GA, .866 SV%
1/26/23-2/28/23: 2-3-3, 27 GA, .856 SV%
3/4/24-4/16/24: 2-8-0, 35 GA, .869 SV%
3/2/25-3/26/25: 2-5-1, 31 GA, .846 SV%He only had a season SV% under .900 in 22-23.
— All About the Jersey (@AATJerseyBlog) November 20, 2025
Swiss Forwards Step Up with Jack Hughes Out
Unfortunately for the Devils, this is far from the first time they’ve had to deal with Jack Hughes out of the lineup. But a silver lining is that every time they have, Timo Meier has stepped up. His first period goal was his seventh of the season, which puts him on a 26-goal pace.
In 40 games as a Devil with Jack out, Meier has 19 goals — a ~39-goal pace over a full season. When Jack is healthy, Meier has 52 goals in 153 games (28-goal pace, 28.2% decrease). In a vacuum, it makes sense. Jack often has the puck on his stick more than anybody else, which means Meier doesn’t get the bulk of the opportunities like he once did as a San Jose Shark.
Per Natural Stat Trick, he led the team in expected goals, shots on goal, scoring chances and high danger chances. He also drew a penalty, blocked a shot, had three hits and won all three face-offs he took.
Head coach Sheldon Keefe gave some great insight on Meier’s ramped up play sans-Hughes:
“Obviously, the more minutes you get, the more touches you get — just the opportunity and the math of the situation, you know, works out. I think that’s a common theme with a lot of players, and the more time you get, you kind of get in a rhythm. You’re seeing it with [Simon Nemec] right now (…) That’s why it’s a little more challenging, in a lot of cases, to play on a good team. You know, it’s easy to play on a team that’s not good and just roll over the boards, and you’re rolling. [On a deeper team] you’ve got to fit in within the role and find different ways to contribute when it’s not going your way, but when an opportunity presents itself, as it inevitably will: be ready. And that’s what we’ve seen from our guys.”
While Nico Hischier’s numbers have historically been mostly unchanged regardless of Jack’s status, his struggles were a large reason the offense struggled once Jack went down. After undergoing a stretch where he scored once in 10 games, he now has five goals in his last five games. It appears whatever was potentially ailing him is past him (that 10-game stretch started after a maintenance day on Oct. 25). In addition to his goal, he made an excellent individual effort to set up Nemec’s game winner:
What a play by #NJDevils Nico Hischier to make this happen.
And has there been a time Simon Nemec *hasn’t* been clutch this season?pic.twitter.com/pf5Zn57vyu
— Daniel Amoia (@daniel_amoia) November 27, 2025
“You know, you can count on [Nico] every day. He comes and competes, and you know, it’s nice to see him get rewarded with the way he’s been playing. He’s obviously massive for our team and he was a huge part of our win tonight,” said Meier.
Simon Nemec…Again!?
It seems all the 21-year-old Nemec does is score clutch goals. In his last eight games, he has two overtime winners, a shootout winner, a game-tying goal with five seconds left, and a hat-trick.
To top it all off, his defensive game has been tremendous. Last season, he was a minus-1 or worse in 11 of 27 games (40.7%). This season, it’s been just four out of 23 (17.3%)…and the last time was 11 games ago (minus-1 on Nov. 2).
His plus-8 rating leads all Devils’ defensemen and is tied with Hischier for best on the entire team. He’s also on pace for and ~18 goals and 50 points.
When Johnathan Kovacevic and Brett Pesce are both healthy, the Devils are going to have a (very good) problem on their hands. At this point, there is no way Nemec can come out of the lineup.
Moving Forward
The Devils — now 15-7-1 — will next head to Buffalo on Black Friday to take on the Sabres (4:00 PM EST).
