With nine games left until the end of the regular season, the New Jersey Devils and Nico are on the brink of elimination in the battle for the NHL playoffs. Despite another good week with wins vs. Dallas (6-4), Nashville (4-2) and Chicago (5-3), as well as a defeat at the Hurricanes (2-5), the Devils still trail the eight and final playoff spot by ten points .

 

With 78 points from 73 games, New Jersey is currently in 13th place in the Eastern Conference and desperately needs more wins in order to gain ground on its competition. Next up for the Devils are the New York Rangers on Tuesday night (7 PM  EST), before hosting the Washington Capitals on Thursday (7:30 PM EST). The week ends with a home-and-away-series with the Montreal Canadiens, starting at the Rock on Saturday night, before travelling to Canada 24 hours later. Both these games will have a 7PM EST starting time.

 

As for this past week, Nico finished the four games with two goals and four assists, 14 shots on goal and an average of 19:42 minutes of ice-time per night. He further prevailed in 64.4% of his faceoffs and finished the week a plus-5.