Online Betting Preview: Blue Jackets vs Devils
Date: Wednesday, November 25th, 2015 Time: 7:00PM Venue: Prudential Center Opening Line: New Jersey -125
After a tough start, have the Columbus Blue Jackets actually improved under John Tortorella? https://t.co/tLuIp4aDbH pic.twitter.com/46qxRigvXZ
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) November 24, 2015
The general consensus was that a lot of things would need to go right in order for the New Jersey Devils (11-8-1) to have any kind of success this season. This year was viewed as something of a transition period, with a new GM and head coach put in place during the offseason. The moves made by the new men seemed to indicate that they wanted to strengthen the defensive group first, with Cory Schneider in goal the key to the success of the defense. The results so far have been pretty good, as the 2.5 goals per game surrendered by the Devils has them in the top 10 in defense. Goals have been, as expected, harder to come by, but New Jersey has done a masterful job on special teams, finding ways to score timely goals or come up with big penalty kill stops to shift the momentum in games. They hit a bit of a rough patch with their west coast swing, but a solid win in Vancouver on Sunday helped them stop the bleeding a little.
The flow of blood in Columbus (8-14-0) has been staunched a little, but this is still a team that is recovering from a pretty horrific injury in the form of an 0-8 start to the season. While the Blue Jackets are a more respectable 6-4 in their last 10 games, they are still pretty deep in the hole that they dug for themselves. As it stands right now, the Blue Jackets find themselves moored to the bottom of the Metropolitan Division, and while they have almost zero chance of winning it, they are just 7 points out of the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference. That has to be their focus as they move forward. In order for that to happen, they are going to have to continue playing the solid defensive hockey that they have adopted under new head coach John Tortorella.