NHL Hockey: Florida Panthers at New Jersey Devils

By BetOnline October 13, 2019

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Four daytime games on the Monday NHL hockey betting schedule and in this preview we’ll take a look at the Florida Panthers as they travel to Newark to take on the New Jersey Devils. Both teams have struggled in the early going as they try to acclimate themselves to new personnel and in the case of the Panthers a new head coach.

The Panthers are 1-2-2 on the season though they are showing signs of progress under legendary head coach Joel Quenneville. Quenneville will have to get better performance out of the team’s big free agent signing, former Columbus Blue Jackets’ goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. There’s no reason to think that Bobrovsky won’t get things turned around but he looked terrible in his first three starts of the season though he was much improved in his last start. Bobrovsky was sometimes a ‘slow starter’ in Columbus so there’s not really anything to be concerned about at this point.

That might not be the case with the New Jersey Devils who could have issues that go well beyond a ‘slow start’. New Jersey’s biggest off season acquisition was former Nashville defenseman PK Subban along with first overall draft pick Jack Hughes. Combined with Taylor Hall, they were expected to be among the top contenders in the Eastern Conference. Instead, they’re 0-3-2 on the year and tied with the Ottawa Senators for the worst record in the East. There’s not much of anything that has gone right for the Devils and the three most heavily hyped players simply haven’t produced. Taylor Hall has only 3 assists on the season, Subban has only 1 assist and Jack Hughes has yet to hit the scoresheet in a NHL game. New Jersey has the #28 scoring defense in the league allowing 4.20 goals per game and #31 team offense in the league scoring only 1.80 goals per game.

The Panthers have lost their last two games via shootout and with a lucky bounce here and there might have won both. We’ll see what this Florida team is made of as they have a nasty schedule coming up with 9 of their next 13 on the road. Counterintuitively, however, with a new coach a long road trip could do wonders for team chemistry. At any rate, they should get the trip off to a winning start against a New Jersey team with issues that run much deeper.