Michael McLeod scored the tiebreaking goal with 8:04 left Friday night for the host New Jersey Devils, who overcame a pair of one-goal deficits to beat the undermanned Chicago Blackhawks 4-2 in Newark, N.J.
Blackhawks right winger Mackenzie Entwistle lost control of the puck while trying to take a whirling shot to set up the Devils’ go-ahead sequence. McLeod picked up the puck and exchanged it in the neutral zone with Alexander Holtz before Holtz passed to Curtis Lazar. The center then backhanded a pass into the crease, where McLeod’s redirected shot fluttered over goalie Arvid Soderblom’s glove.
Holtz scored in the second, Simon Nemec scored the game-tying goal in the third and Tyler Toffoli added an empty-netter with 27 seconds left for the Devils, who have won five of six (5-1-0). Goalie Vitek Vanecek made 23 saves.
Jason Dickinson and Boris Katchouk scored for the Blackhawks, who completed a winless five-game road trip (0-4-1) and played the last 49-plus minutes without Connor Bedard after the star rookie was leveled in the open ice by Devils defenseman Brendan Smith.
Soderblom recorded 28 saves for Chicago, which has nine players on injured reserve.
The Blackhawks took the lead by scoring on the power play late in the first. Nikita Zaitsev outlasted Lazar and Nathan Bastian for the puck along the boards and dished to Alex Vlasic. The defenseman then passed to Dickinson, whose shot glanced off Vanecek’s glove as Entwistle set a screen with 4:55 left.
A Blackhawks turnover led to Holtz’s tying goal just beyond the midway point of the second. Nemec picked off a pass by Kevin Korchinski and backhanded the puck to Holtz. Nemec and Holtz exchanged the puck before Holtz fired a shot into the gaping left corner of the net with 9:52 remaining.
Katchouk tied the score with an impressive short-handed, unassisted goal a little under eight minutes later. The left winger intercepted Toffoli’s pass in the neutral zone, skated to the edge of center ice, weaved around Dawson Mercer, headed back towards Vanecek and deked Jack Hughes before sending a shot over Vanecek’s glove at 18: 24.
Nemec began the third-period flurry at the 5:41 mark, when he capped an end-to-end rush by the Devils by taking a pass from Chris Tierney and beating Soderblom to the far side.
–Field Level Media
