The Devils and Sabres are back at it again at O2 Arena on Saturday (10 a.m. ET; MSGSN, NHLN, MSG-B, SN).
“I hope tomorrow, when we’re the home team, that those fans behind their net will be cheering for us,” New Jersey defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic said. “I don’t know how they’re going to do it. I love that European atmosphere where they have the chants and they’re really into it. They have a lot of passion all game. So I think tomorrow, it’s our home game, they should switch to cheer for us. And we got ‘Pally’ (Palat), so we got the Czech guy.”
Smart thinking by Kovacevic to try to plant that seed, but it’s not likely the Sabres local fan club will just switch allegiances because the home/road split turns in the Devils’ favor Saturday.
If anything, they’ll be louder.
“We know who those guys are,” Buffalo captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “They’re unbelievable, so tomorrow we owe them a win.”
The Sabres will have to be way better at the start of the game to get the split before going home.
The Devils were the aggressor in the first period, the dominant team, controlling the play with their hard forecheck and in-your-face style, basically doing everything they worked on and talked about in training camp.
“The guys are excited to play,” New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe said. “It didn’t come together for us in the preseason the way we would have wanted to, but what hasn’t wavered is the players’ commitment level, the work ethic, their attention in meetings, the questions that they asked. The players, I was hoping would respond, and they did.”
Stefan Noesen scored first at 8:39 and Kovacevic made it 2-0 at 15:38.
“You mean the goal by ‘Kovechkin,’ ” Keefe said. “I’ve been waiting all training camp to use that. Glad I didn’t have to wait too long.”
Jacob Markstrom made the most impossible of his 30 saves possible at 16:57, when he stunned the Sabres and, yes, probably their fan club, with a paddle save on forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel, who appeared to have a wide-open net until, well, he didn’t.
“Yeah, the stick was crazy,” Kovacevic said. “There was so much chaos that it was like, I don’t think everyone caught it, but it was, yeah, hell of a save. He was an absolute brick wall for us tonight.”
