It’s remarkable that the New Jersey Devils beat the Dallas Stars 3-2 in overtime last night, especially since they did so without Mike Cammalleri.
Cammalleri is day-to-day with an upper-body injury, as Devils head coach John Hynes told the Bergen Record’s Tom Gulitti.
The Devils must hope that those days are limited, as their offense clearly leans on a small handful of contributors:
1. Cammalleri - 35 points
2. Kyle Palmieri - 30 points
3. Lee Stempniak - 28 points
4. Adam Henrique - 27 points
5. Travis Zajac - 18 points
6. Damon Severson - 11 points
The Devils put on a brave face about playing without Cammalleri, mind you, noting previous successes without top scorers.
“We’ve gone through this when we didn’t have Travis, we went through it when we didn’t have Henrique and then we didn’t have both of those guys,” Hynes said. “At that time, they were big scorers for us and things were going on and this is something we had talked about. You have to be a strong team and these things are going to come up. Whatever group we have that night, we have to play a certain way and find a way to win a game and we were able to do that tonight.”
The Devils don’t really enjoy any big breaks this week, so if this is a lingering thing, they’ll face a real challenge. Their next game is a home date against the Detroit Red Wings.