New Jersey Devils at New York Islanders

The goalie matchup decides this one for me. New Jersey is starting Nico Daws, who has not played this season and made 3 starts last year. Those starts added up to a .908, but the best of them came last October. His two most recent were .846 at Boston and .900 against Ottawa. Everything that looked good about the Devils in their opener came with Jake Allen in net: the 44 shots, the 67.3% 5-on-5 shot-attempt share, the .950 save percentage at 5-on-5. Nothing they have done so far reflects tonight's change in goal. Ilya Sorokin is on the other side, with 54 starts and 7 shutouts last season. In the opener at Toronto he stopped 24 of 26 shots. His finish to last season was rough, and I have weighed that. Still, I would rather back that body of work than a backup with three starts last season. New York's opening loss reads better than the 1-2 score. The Islanders had 57.5% of the 5-on-5 shot attempts in Toronto and scored on none of their 5-on-5 shots, and a finishing rate that low rarely holds. DeBoer reshuffled three forward lines to get more even-strength offense. The Islanders get their home opener at UBS Arena three days after their last game. The Devils played an overtime game two nights ago and are making their first road trip. Last season the Islanders were the tighter defensive club. They allowed 2.88 goals per game with a .910 save percentage at 5-on-5, against 3.09 and .898 for New Jersey. They also beat the Devils in all four meetings, two of them by a single goal. Both rosters have changed since then, so I treat the head-to-head as background. New Jersey has more skill up front. Jack Hughes had 77 points in 61 games, and the Devils' power play ran at 22.0% to New York's 16.5%, so this is a coin flip with an edge rather than a lock. At -135, the market is asking me to pay a road favorite's price for a team with its backup in net. At +114, I only need the Islanders to win a little under half the time, at home, with the established goalie.