Jacob Markstrom made 34 saves as the New Jersey Devils halted the Florida Panthers seven-game winning streak with a 4-1 victory in the first of two-straight games at Amerant Bank Arena.
The Cats got off to a strong start, outshooting the Devils 9-2 in the early going, but could not solve Markstrom to grab the lead.
Instead, it was the Devils who scored first when Jesper Bratt took an entry pass from Dougie Hamilton and drew too much interest from the Panthers, who let the dangerous Jack Hughes slip behind them unmarked. Hughes one-timed Bratt’s brilliant cross-ice backhand aerial feed past Spencer Knight at 8:30 to register his 300th NHL point.
Sam Reinhart would extend his point streak to eight games by deflecting Uvis Balinskis’ wrist shot from long-range by Markstrom at the 8:41 mark of the second period with Paul Cotter serving time in the sin bin. Aleksander Barkov drew the secondary helper, bumping his point streak up to six games.
After Knight made a hell of a glove save on Dawson Mercer’s breakaway attempt to keep the game even, Timo Meier would get behind the Florida defense to accept a Mercer pass and light the lamp from the high slot to break the tie with 2:31 left in the frame. Jonas Siegenthaler was credited with second assist. He knocked away Matthew Tkachuk’s pass intended for Evan Rodrigues along the boards and Mercer won the puck near his own blue line.
The Panthers kept grinding away, only to be denied by their former goaltender at every turn. Markstrom stopped all 13 of the shots he faced in the third period.
Cotter’s absolute bullet of a wrister, with the assists going to Nico Hischier and Hamilton, from the left circle off the rush with 4:53 to go in regulation spelled doom for the frustrated Cats.
Ondrej Palat added a empty-netter with 1:02 left on the clock to add insult to injury with the lone assist going to Bratt.
The winning streak ends, but other than a few defensive lapses, there wasn’t much to dislike about the effort. Florida, who were missing Sam Bennett, out-shot the Devils 35-24, won 60% of the game’s faceoffs, out-hit them 36-25, and except for a delaying the game call on A.J. Greer, stayed out of the penalty box. Thanks to a superb effort from Markstrom, who was aided a bit by the plumbing behind him, the Devils were able to weather the storm early and killed off a 5-on-3 to get out of the first period ahead. Not making excuses, but some questionable officiating was also a factor. The two teams will tangle again on Thursday.
Fire & Brimstone
- Sam Reinhart is in a three-way tie with Leon Draisaitl and Cole Caufield for the league lead in goals with 12. Reinhart’s marker was his third power-play tally of the season.
- New Jersey’s Jack Hughes (325 games) became the fastest player in franchise history to reach 300 points, bettering the old mark set by Kirk Muller (332).
- Midway through the second period, Jonah Gadjovich and Brenden Dillion engaged in one of the best hockey fights this writer’s seen in quite some time.
- Spencer Knight finished the game with 20 saves and was tagged with his second loss of the campaign.
- The Devils combined to block 21 shots. First Star Timo Meier and Brett Pesce led the way with three apiece.