A second trip to a three -season qualifying series means that New Jersey’s Devils safely can declare that their prolonged reconstruction is over.
For the Red Wings of Detroit, these feelings must wait again next year.
The Devils will continue to prepare for the playoffs while the Red Wings will continue to play the rope on Wednesday evening when the teams meet in Newark, NJ
The Devils finish a consecutive set after preceding the Boston Bruins 5-4 host on Tuesday. The Red Wings were outside Tuesday, one day after beating the stars of Dallas on 6-4 visit.
With their set in playoffs and a sequence of three consecutive defeats on Tuesday, the Devils (42-32-7, 91 points) have only one objective on Wednesday: to leave their regular season final as possible of health.
New Jersey will finish in third place in the metropolitan division and will face the second place of the Hurricanes of Caroline in a series in playoffs in the first round.
The Devils dodged a frightened injury on Tuesday when the winger left Ondrej Palat after blocked a pair of fire in the first period. Coach Sheldon Keefe said that the x -rays were negative, but that Palat sit on Wednesday when New Jersey could also rest several other players.
The Devils scratched seven players on Tuesday, when they were also without striker Paul Cotter, who served the first competition for a suspension of two games for providing an illegal check at the head of Adam Pelech of the New York Islanders on Sunday.
“Our whole group we will have to watch,” said Keefe. “We have a number of guys here today – a combination of guys who appear on our injury list that breastfeeds certain things and just have conversations with the way guys feel to make the right decisions (Wednesday) and make sure that we do not put anyone in unnecessarily.”
The Devils, which reached the semi-finals of the Eastern Conference in 2023, made the playoffs last time in three years from three years from 2010 to 2012. They reached the playoffs only once in the next 10 years.
The Red Wings (38-35-7, 83 points) will miss the playoffs for the ninth consecutive year-a drought of franchise record which started immediately after Detroit set a team record by reaching the 25 consecutive hours.
The Red Wings appeared as if they could break the sequence when they went 9-1-1 from February 23 to 25 to move to the first point of East Joker, four points from ninth place. However, Detroit later went 8-13-1 and was eliminated from the line on Saturday when the Montreal Canadians obtained a point in a 1-0 defeat in overtime against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Detroit will miss the playoffs with a larger margin and will finish with fewer points this season than last season, when the Red Wings equaled Washington’s capital for the second point of Jker at 91 points, but lost the equal break in regulations.
“We had a clear goal in this season, how close we were close to last year,” said left winger Lucas Raymond, who was credited with the winning goal on Monday after scoring the third of the four surveys of the Red Wings. “The only next step we could take was to make the playoffs, and we were very determined to get there.
“We could not do it and we know it, and it is about looking at us and understanding what we have to do as a team to take the next step.”
– field level media