After being held without a goal through the first three games of the season, Jack Hughes is officially on a tear. He scored his first of the year in the home opener against the Florida Panthers
, twice on Saturday against the Edmonton Oilers, and he followed that up with a hat trick tonight, as the New Jersey Devils beat the Maple Leafs, 5-2, up in Toronto. The Devils have now won five games in a row, their longest streak in almost three years.This was a game that New Jersey controlled all night
long. It was refreshing to see after the team had made a habit of getting out to slow starts this season. Prior to tonight, only the Lightning game in the opening week of the season stands out to me as one in which the Devils came out of the gates well. Even in their last game, a big win over the Oilers, New Jersey didn’t register a shot on goal until about 10 minutes into the contest. But tonight was different, as the Devils jumped on the Maple Leafs and seemed to get stronger as each of the 60 minutes ticked off the clock.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at the scoreboard after the first period, though. That’s because New Jersey native Anthony Stolarz was putting on a goaltending clinic. Keep in mind, this was the same Anthony Stolarz who robbed the Devils of a win last season at The Rock, stopping 38 of 39 shots to lead the Maple Leafs to a 2-1 overtime victory on December 10th. And through 20 minutes, he was doing it again. New Jersey was thoroughly controlling play, but Stolarz’ magic and a John Tavares goal that he batted out of the air and into the net conspired to put the Devils down 1-0 entering the second period.
And that’s when Jack Hughes and the Devils went to work.
Hughes and Jesper Bratt were absolutely flying tonight. They started their high wire act in the first period, but didn’t have any goals to show for it. The breakthrough came in the middle frame, as Hughes wired a wrister from the slot past Stolarz and in to tie the game. The marker came off a sweet feed from Bratt, and the Devils caught a break when Toronto head coach Craig Berube decided to challenge for goaltender interference. This was, quite simply, a bad challenge, as while Ondrej Palat was battling in front with Chris Tanev, Palat very clearly did not interfere with Stolarz. This unsuccessful challenge sent New Jersey to the power play, where they scored again. In the dying seconds of the man advantage, Timo Meier whipped a one-timer toward the net that was going wide. But it banked off a skate in front and right to Cody Glass, who buried the loose puck to give the Devils their first lead of the night.
The Devils were rolling, and they wouldn’t stop there. A few minutes later, Brenden Dillon took a nice pass from Luke Glendening and rifled a shot past Stolarz to finish off a 4-on-1 rush and extend New Jersey’s lead to 3-1. Please note, none of what you just read was a typo. That really happened, with that exact combination of players, under those circumstances. Really.
After Toronto got a goal back to cut New Jersey’s lead to 3-2, Simon Nemec (more on him later) made a nice play to force a turnover off the rush. Bratt scooped up the loose puck and made a killer stretch pass to Jack Hughes, who had a step on the Leafs defense and skated down the left wing on Stolarz. For the first time in what seems like generations, Hughes wound up and ripped a slap shot that beat Stolarz near-side, restoring the Devils’ two-goal lead.
When Brenden Dillon is finishing off 4-on-1’s and Jack Hughes is unleashing clappers, you know it’s your night.
And with that, the Devils took a 4-2 edge into the third period. The final frame was pretty uneventful, as New Jersey did a pretty good job of keeping their collective boot on the neck of the Maple Leafs, not allowing them any room to make a comeback. Then in the final minutes of the game, with the Toronto net empty, Bratt collected a puck in the neutral zone and made a pass across the ice to Hughes, who shot a puck that was partially deflected into the yawning cage to complete the hat trick, Hughes’ third of his career. The game would end on that 5-2 final score.
This was a great night for the Devils. Hughes was obviously the superstar, but just about every other player on the team contributed in some way. Hughes had the hat trick, Bratt assisted on all three of those goals, and eight other Devils collected points this evening. All while playing really good team defense and absolutely locking the game down in the third period.
The New Jersey Devils have won five straight games, and are officially rolling.
The Game Stats: The NHL.com Game Summary | The NHL.com Event Summary | The NHL.com Play by Play Log | The NHL.com Shot Summary | The Natural Stat Trick Game Stats
The Game Highlights: Courtesy of NHL.com
Allen Continues To Shine
While Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and the skaters put together a fantastic team effort, Jake Allen once again gave his team a quality start. Allen stopped 23 of 25 shots, good for a .920 sv%. According to Natural Stat Trick, he saved 1.07 Goals Above Expected. And he saved the best for last, absolutely robbing Morgan Rielly in the final minutes of the game. Keep in mind, that save came before Hughes’ empty-netter sealed it, so a goal there would have made the score 4-3 with enough time for the Maple Leafs to push for the tying goal. It was an absolutely monstrous save.
With Jacob Markstrom injured, Allen has been forced to take on a larger role than we all thought he would have at this point. But thus far, he has absolutely exceeded expectations. Things can change quickly in this league, especially with goaltenders, but between Allen’s terrific 2024-25 season and now his fantastic start to this campaign, it might be time to start taking about Allen as one of the higher-end goaltenders in the league.
Putting The “Special” In Special Teams
The Devils continued to excel on special teams tonight. New Jersey’s penalty kill entered this contest having successfully killed off 16 straight man disadvantages. Well make it 18 in a row, as they killed both of Toronto’s power plays this evening. In fact, New Jersey was the team that almost scored during the first chance, as not only did the Leafs not register a shot on goal, but Nico Hischier almost buried one himself on a shorthanded 2-on-1. The only reason the Devils didn’t tally yet another shorthanded goal was because Stolarz made an incredible save. He gave up four goals tonight, but Stolarz had one of the best four-goals-against games I’ve seen in a while.
As for the power play, that unit went 1-for-2 tonight, with Glass’ marker in the second period proving to be crucial. Keefe continues to rotate his power play units, opting for Hamilton and Mercer in this game to go along with the staple forwards of Hughes, Hischier, and Bratt. It was his second unit that got on the board tonight though.
New Jersey relied on elite special teams to make it to the postseason a year ago, and early on in 2025-26, the Devils are proving that those units can be relied on again. The power play and penalty kill continue to be gamebreakers for New Jersey.
Palat’s Injury Scare
Early in the first period, Ondrej Palat left the bench, leaving Hughes and Bratt to skate mostly with Paul Cotter until the opening frame ended. Palat did return at the beginning of the second and managed to finish the game, so he appears no worse for wear, which is nice to see.
At the time of this writing, I have not seen any indication why Palat left. I (and the MSG broadcast) only speculate that it was injury related. Maybe it was an equipment issue, who knows. Assuming it was some sort of health-related absence, it was nice to see him return. As much as a lot of us get on Palat, this team really cannot afford many more injuries.
Nemec’s Worst Game
I thought Simon Nemec had a really bad game tonight. He did some noticeably good things, including creating the turnover that directly led to Hughes’ slap shot goal. He was also on the ice for the 4-on-1 that the Devils generated in the second period that resulted in Dillon’s goal.
But he was also the main character in the opening marker tonight, first icing the puck, then failing to box out Tavares in front, letting him bat the puck in to give the Maple Leafs an early lead. He was also the primary reason why Toronto scored their other goal tonight, stepping up on Tavares at the Devils’ blue line and failing to disrupt the play. This led to an odd-man rush and a tap-in goal for Matias Maccelli. According to Natural Stat Trick, Nemec posted a subterranean 5-on-5 Expected Goals For% of 15.59%. Per Hockey Stat Cards, Nemec was the worst Devil by GameScore this evening. My own personal eye test and multiple analytics models agree: Nemec was awful tonight.
At this point, I think Nemec has not forced head coach Sheldon Keefe to keep him in the lineup once Johnny Kovacevic returns. All the small sample size caveats apply, but while I do think Nemec has had his moments and has had a couple good games, he’s also struggled a little more than I would have liked on the young season. He’s getting mostly cushy deployment on the third pair with Brenden Dillon, and he’s still losing his minutes more than you’d want to see.
Again, it’s early and I still believe in Nemec long term. Heck, I believe in him short term too, as I think he is more than capable of rattling off a bunch of great games in a row. But at least through six games this season, Nemec has clearly been the sixth-best defenseman on the team in my opinion. And tonight was his worst game yet.
Keefe Finally Gets His Revenge
Let’s end on a positive. Congrats to Sheldon Keefe for his first win over his new team. New Jersey lost all three games to Toronto last season, and they’ve struggled mightily against them in general in recent years, losing 14 of the last 17 meetings between the clubs.
But the win tonight finally gets the monkey off Keefe’s back. I have no idea if Keefe holds a lot of reverence or a lot of disdain for the Maple Leafs organization, or something in between. I’m not in the man’s head. But I do feel pretty safe in assuming that he really wanted to beat his old employer tonight after going 0-for-3 in 2024-25. Kudos to Keefe for that feather in his cap.
Next Time Out
Tonight was the beginning of New Jersey’s first back-to-back this season. The Devils will return to The Rock to host the Minnesota Wild tomorrow night. Puck drop is slated for 7:00pm.
Your Take
What did you make of tonight’s game? Aside from Jack Hughes, who impressed you the most? Do you agree that this was Nemec’s worst game of the season? Are you concerned at all with him? How encouraged are you by Allen’s start to the season? As always, thanks for reading!
