New York fell 3-2 to the New Jersey Devils in their first preseason game of the season. Goals by Anton Blidh and Drew Fortescue were not enough, as Dylan Garand stopped 28 of 31 shots faced in the losing effort. It was a decent team effort though, backstopped by a strong performance in net.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Wolf Pack had shown up to play the Devils tonight. Mike Sullivan dressed a very inexperienced side to face a strong Devils line-up at the Prudential Center Monday night. When Juuso Parssinen and Matt Rempe are two of your most experienced forwards, you know it’s going to be a questionable line-up.

GARAND PUTS IN A BID

It feels like Garand went into this camp as the probable third goaltender behind Igor Shesterkin and Joonas Korpisalo. He needed a strong outing tonight, and he delivered that. He had the tougher job tonight, facing down 31 shots and perhaps could have been faulted only on one of the goals against.

The other two goals came off of Ranger deflections. The first one put the Devils ahead and caromed off of William Trudeau off a Nico Hischier shot that probably would have gone wide. Later on, it was the game winner, with Glenn Gawdin looking as if he may have deflected a Jack Hughes centering shot past his own net minder.

Only Timo Meier’s goal might have been stopped, though it too came off a weak turnover by Vincent Iorio behind the net which caught the young netminder loose on the post, allowing Meier to tuck it in.

INJURIES HIT TWO PLAYERS

Adam Sykora left the game early after driving his leg into the boards awkwardly and needing assistance to leave the ice. He was unable to put weight on his right leg and went straight down the tunnel to the locker room and didn’t return. Later on Vincent Iorio left the bench and did not return, though it’s unclear what happened.

For Sykora, the injury to his leg looked concerning. We’ll have to wait for more news, though the hope is that it’s not a significant injury that would cause him to miss any long length of time.

PLAYERS OF NOTE

Many were keen to see how Liam Greentree would do against stronger competition, and he again showed a few promising signs. Particularly a sequence in the second where he out maneuvered his defender to set up a shot from the shot only to whiff on it. He still managed to get a shot off after he recovered, but Nico Daws had time to recover. Greentree did pick up a primary assist on Anton Blidh’s goal earlier in the period, though it was really Blidh who did the work.

Defenseman Drew Fortescue had an uneven start to the game, but appeared to shine as the game went on. He had been paired with Iorio to start the game, but after his partner’s departure he seemed to steady a little. His goal was a sharp wrister that beat Daws on the glove side, and brought the team back to 2-2.

Jacob Battaglia had one solid shift where he had a half chance himself, and then almost set up a team mate on the back door, but was largely a non-factor for the rest of the game. Nathan Aspinall had a couple of similar moments, but was relatively quiet.

SUMMARY

The top line for the Devils was their most effective one, though aside from them, the home team appeared to be operating a bit on auto-pilot. Nico Daws struggled on both goals he gave up, and showed a weakness on the glove side.

For the Rangers, it was a solid outing with the team doing a solid job of keeping the game close and even chipping in a couple of goals. Tomorrow night’s game against the Islanders at MSG – 7:00pm, should see a more NHL-centric line-up.