Over the course of a three-game homestand that began last Thursday against Montreal, the Devils had tempted fate time and again and survived.
They needed a late goal from Timo Meier and overtime heroics
from Jesper Bratt to outlast the Canadiens Thursday night. On Saturday afternoon, they needed Jake Allen to keep them in the game long enough to beat Pittsburgh on a Paul Cotter shootout goal.
So when Simon Nemec blasted a slap shot from the point past Ilya Sorokin to tie Monday night’s game with 4.7 seconds to play you couldn’t blame the sellout crowd of 16,514 for getting their hopes up.
Those hopes were dashed just 1 minute, 17 seconds into overtime when Jonathan Drouin feathered a pass through Luke Hughes to Mat Barzal and Barzal scored to give the Isles a 3-2 win, snapping New Jersey’s eight-game home winning streak.
The Devils, who now head out on a five-game road trip dropped to 11-4-1. They’re now 3-3-1 in their last seven after starting the season 8-1.
It was not a good night for Luke Hughes, who after an early assist on a Timo Meier goal that put the Devils ahead 1-0, was on ice for all three Islander goals, played a major role in two of them, and finished a minus-2.
In the second period, he gifted Bo Horvat a goal by throwing a blind pass to Kyle Palmieri at center ice and then got stuck between Emil Heineman and a linesmen and couldn’t recover in time to catch Horvat, who fired a wrist shot past Jacob Markstrom to get the Islanders even at 1-1 at 6:55.
And that’s how things stayed till the final few minutes of the third.
Sorokin was outstanding, stopping 33 of 35 shots, including the first 13 he faced in the third period, when the Devils seemed to be coming in waves.
Markstrom was also really good stopping 21 of 24 and made two heart-stopping poke checks, but was helpless to stop ex-Devil Palmieri from putting the Islanders up 2-1 with 2:53 to go, whacking home a Matthew Schaefer point shot that deflected off Brendan Dillon in front.
That set the stage for Nemec’s first of the year with Markstrom off for the extra attacker and time expiring.
The Devils had a golden opportunity right before Barzal’s OT winner when Ryan Pulock nearly gave the puck away to Jack Hughes in the slot, but Barzal tipped it away from Hughes to Drouin and raced up ice to score the winner.
Consolation Prize
Seeing the home winning streak end is disappointing but every point banked is important at this point. New Jersey stays a point ahead of Carolina atop both the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference and are enjoying one of the best starts in franchise history points-wise.
It was also nice to see them finally snap the 0-for-8 power play drought and get their first PPG since Oct. 30 thanks to Meier and Bratt. Granted they went 0-for-3 with the man-advantage the rest of the way.
Up Next
The Devils travel to Chicago for a Wednesday night game with a Blackhawks team that’s third in the Central at 8-5-3. Then they have games with Washington, Tampa, Florida, and Philly, before returning home to host the Red Wings Thanksgiving week.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of tonight’s game? It felt like they were going to pull it off until they didn’t, didn’t it? Should Luke Hughes be way less sloppy in year three? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.
