BUFFALO, N.Y. _ When the Devils hit the road for this New Year's road trip, they were trending in the right direction.
They failed to carry that trend over into 2019, going 1-3-0 on their four-game road trip.
A combination of bad goaltending and even worse play in front of the goaltender was just as ineffective as it sounds and resulted in the Devils dropping the final game of the trip, 5-1, to the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Tuesday night.
Keith Kinkaid made 28 saves and the Devils were outshot 33-21.
Blake Coleman scored just 1:28 into play to give the Devils a 1-0 lead but the ice quickly tilted in the direction of the Sabres and it didn't tilt back. New Jersey held down the fort in the first period going into the intermission with the lead but it wasn't long before it was erased in the second period.
Jeff Skinner netted the equalizer 1:39 into the second period and things quickly unraveled from there. Skinner's goal was the first of five unanswered second-period goals for the Sabres. The Devils had little offensive zone time and their best chance to score, a power play late in the period, only resulted in a short-handed goal.
New Jersey has been outscored 51-42 in second period play this season and allowed at least three goals in the same period for the sixth time this season. Even more troubling, all six of those games have come on the road.
The Devils were struggling to close out games at the start of the season, losing games in the third period. Now, they're digging holes too deep to climb out of in the second. It was a poor second period that doomed the Devils against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.
Less than three minutes later, C.J. Smith scored his first NHL goal when he ripped a shot through the legs of defenseman Steven Santini and the puck trickled past Kinkaid. Sami Vatanen tried to sweep the puck off the crease but it was clear even before the replays that it had crossed the line.
Casey Mittelstadt became a first-time NHL goal scorer as well when he caught his own rebound and hammered it past Kinkaid at 10:42 to make it 3-1.
The Devils had a power play at 14:29 but couldn't capitalize. Instead, it was Jake McCabe who capitalized for the Sabres, finishing off a cross-ice feed from Evan Rodrigues for a shorthanded goal at the 16:00 mark.
Just 1:45 later, Lawrence Pilut joined the same club as Smith and Mittelstadt when he ripped a shot through traffic to make it 5-1.
