First period
New Jersey Devils vs New York Rangers prediction and odds starts with the simplest market read from the board: New York Rangers are listed as the home side and the Devils are the away side for this regular-season matchup.
The New Jersey Devils vs New York Rangers moneyline will naturally be influenced by New York holding home-ice designation, while New Jersey’s price gets shaped by available lineup certainty around key pieces.
For the Devils,
Jack Hughes is ruled Out with a finger injury after being placed on injured reserve on Nov. 18, and that single status tag can tighten how bettors project New Jersey’s early-game pace and first-period scoring.
For New Jersey’s blue line,
Brett Pesce is Out with an upper-body injury on long-term injured reserve since Oct. 26, and
Johnathan Kovacevic is Out with a knee injury on long-term injured reserve since Oct. 12, which can affect how the market prices early defensive-zone exits.
Jesper Bratt is available with no listed injury, and that availability is a concrete driver for props tied to Devils forwards who remain in the everyday mix.
In net, New Jersey has both
Jacob Markstrom and
Jake Allen listed with no injuries, and goalie availability is a direct input to first-period totals and any “team to score first” style markets.
Second period
The second-period betting conversation keeps circling back to New Jersey’s depth being intact in several spots, because Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Ondrej Palat, and Jesper Bratt all appear without injury designations.
New Jersey’s defensive group also lists
Dougie Hamilton,
Luke Hughes,
Jonas Siegenthaler,
Brenden Dillon,
Simon Nemec,
Dennis Cholowski, and
Colton White without injuries, and that set of healthy names can stabilize live wagering if the game stays tight into the middle frame.
The injury list still matters in live odds, because
Marc McLaughlin is Out on injured reserve with an undisclosed injury since Oct. 6, and
Zack MacEwen is Out on injured reserve with a lower-body injury since Nov. 13, which can narrow the available rotation if the game turns physical.
With New York listed as NYR and New Jersey listed as NJ in the matchup slate, books will keep splitting markets by home/away status, and that structure often shows up in period lines and alternate spreads.
If you’re hunting free picks New Jersey Devils vs New York Rangers, the clearest fact-based hinge in this dataset is that New Jersey’s top-end center depth is affected by Hughes being Out, while several other core forwards remain available.
Third period
Late-game pricing can swing on who is simply able to be on the ice, and New Jersey’s clean availability for Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, and Ondrej Palat gives the Devils reliable options for closing situations.
On the back end, Hamilton and Luke Hughes being available helps keep New Jersey’s preferred defenders in the mix, while the absences of Pesce and Kovacevic remain structural constraints that bettors account for when projecting defensive stops under pressure.
Because the schedule listing places this as a regular-season game in tournament round type group, number 1, the market will treat it as a standard 60-minute NHL pricing menu with regulation, overtime, and shootout outcomes baked into the main line.
For viewers tracking the New Jersey Devils vs New York Rangers channel details, the game is scheduled for March 18, 2026 at 7:00 PM ET at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY, and it will be carried on TNT and streamed on HBO Max.
Ride your angles with disciplined bankroll management, keep your eye on late injury confirmations tied to New Jersey’s IR names, and share this article with Devils fans sizing up the Broadway Blues game.
