The New Jersey Devils head into the new year on a three-game winning streak, thanks to the impressive play of their new goaltender, rookie Mackenzie Blackwood.
The Devils finished the calendar year with an overall regular season record of 37-35-10. The 84 points from January through December were the 18th most in the NHL.
Here are the clubs with the best and worst overall records in 2018:
Most Points NHL 2018
Tampa Bay 57-22-5 119 pts
Winnipeg 54-21-6 114 pts
Nashville 53-23-8 114 pts
Toronto 52-22-7 111 pts
Pittsburgh 49-23-9 107 pts
Fewest Points NHL 2018
Chicago 30-45-10 68 pts
Ottawa 31-47-7 69 pts
Detroit 30-42-13 73 pts
NY Rangers 31-40-11 73 pts
Carolina 34-39-9 77 pts
Mackenzie Blackwood became the first rookie goalie in Devils' history to post back-to-back shutouts. On Monday afternoon, he stopped 25 shots as the Devils defeated the Canucks 4-0 at the Prudential Center.
Blackwood is now 3-1-0 with a 1.25 goals against average and a .963 save percentage in five games played since being called up to New Jersey on December 17th.
Blackwood, aged just 22 years and 22 days, is also now the youngest goaltender in club history to record consecutive regular-season shutouts. He is roughly 10 months younger than Martin Brodeur (22 years, 338 days) was when the future Hall-of-Famer shut out the Senators and Rangers back on April 5th and April 9th of 1995.
Brodeur is also the only Devils goaltender to have three consecutive regular season shutouts; beating the Rangers 4-0, the Capitals 1-0 and the Lightning 3-0, back on March 27th, April 1st and April 4th, 1997.
Blackwood stopped 37 shots for his first NHL shutout to lead the Devils to their first two-game winning streak since November 13th and 15th as they beat the Carolina Hurricanes 2-0 on Saturday afternoon in Newark.
According to NHL Public Relations, Blackwood at 22 years and 20 days old, became the third-youngest goaltender in Devils/Rockies/Scouts franchise history to record his first career NHL shutout:
Sean Burke 21 years, 60 days 3/29/88 Pit 0 vs. NJD 4
Martin Brodeur 21 years, 167 days 10/20/93 Ana 0 at NJD 4
Mackenzie Blackwood 22 years, 20 days 12/29/18 Car 0 at NJD 2
Bill Oleschuk 23 years, 100 days 10/28/78 Col 1 at Min 0
Scott Wedgewood 23 years, 223 days 3/24/2016 NJD 3 at Pit 0
Andy Greene’s empty-net goal with 33 seconds remaining sealed the win for New Jersey.
The goal was the 44th career regular season goal for the Devils’ captain, tying him with Brian Rafalski for the fourth-most in club history:
Scott Niedermayer 112
Scott Stevens 93
Bruce Driver 83
Brian Rafalski 44
Andy Greene 44
Joe Cirella 43
Ken Daneyko 36
It was also the fifth empty-net goal of Greene’s career, the second-most by a Devils defenseman in the regular season in club history according to the player goal finder on hockey-reference.com:
Scott Stevens 8
Andy Greene 5
Bruce Driver 1
Viacheslav Fetisov 1
Jason Smith 1
Lyle Odelein 1
Adam Larsson 1
Sami Vatanen 1
Blackwood stopped 40 shots for his first NHL victory as the Devils beat the Bruins 5-2 last Thursday night in Boston.
Blackwood became the second goaltender in franchise history to record his first NHL win against the Bruins.
The first was Sean Burke, who got his first NHL win for New Jersey in a 7-6 overtime victory at Boston Garden back on March 5th, 1988.
New Jersey took the lead 25 seconds into the game on a goal by Damon Severson.
According to the player goal finder on hockey-reference.com, Severson became the 10th Devils defenseman to score a goal in the opening minute of a regular season game:
12/27/18 Damon Severson at Bos :25
3/3/15 Adam Larsson vs. Nsh :58
12/6/02 Oleg Tverdovsky vs. Pit :29
1/1/00 Scott Niedermayer vs. Bos :22
10/7/99 Brad Bombardir vs. Pit :36
2/13/99 Scott Niedermayer vs. Car :36
12/18/98 Scott Stevens vs. Cgy :57
2/23/94 Scott Stevens at Det :26
3/25/89 Ken Daneyko at Pit :22
3/24/88 Joe Cirella at Stl :15
Blake Coleman scored twice in the win, including his first career power play goal.
The player in Devils’ history with the most career regular season goals without scoring a power play goal for New Jersey is Bobby Carpenter, who scored 35 goals for the Devils without any on the power play.
Plus/Minus:
Plus: Killing It. New Jersey is 28-for-29 on the penalty kill over their last eight games and is now second in the NHL in PK percentage at 84.8 (Arizona is first at 87.7)
Minus: No Taylor Hall. The Devils won all three games this past week without the reigning Hart Trophy winner, but their leading scorer is on IR and day-to-day with a lower-body injury.