Jack Hughes takes Devils to Rangers in thriller



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In the first confrontation of the two most recent No. 1 picks in the NHL Draft, the uniformed youngster of the Devils prevailed.

Behind a three-point performance from Jack Hughes, the Devils won the first of eight games against the Rangers this season with a 4-3 win at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. The Rangers couldn’t contain the top pick in the 2019 overall standings, which scored two of the Devils’ four goals and assisted on another, while their own No.1 pick Alexis Lafreniere continued to find his feet in his third game in the NHL.

Devils head coach Lindy Ruff claimed the win in his first game against the Rangers since stepping down as assistant coach on Broadway after three seasons in the last offseason.

It was the youngest team in the NHL compared to the second youngest, but the biggest difference turned out to be Hughes’ extra year.

The Rangers’ buzzing power play kept them competitive, with two of their three goals on the man advantage. Their first evenly matched goal only came in the third period, when Filip Chytil rebounded seven minutes into the final period to bring the Rangers back to one hour.

Jack Hughes celebrates his second goal of the night in the Devils' 4-3 win over the Rangers.
Jack Hughes celebrates his second goal of the night in the Devils’ 4-3 win over the Rangers.
NHLI via Getty Images

Despite two penalties at the end of the third period, the Rangers couldn’t get one more with the man advantage as Devils goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood finished the night with 47 of 50 saves. shots.

Alexandar Georgiev deflected 16 of 20 shots he faced before David Quinn opted to put Igor Shesterkin in the net to start the third. Shesterkin finished with eight saves.

The Rangers were caught sleeping when the puck dropped as Travis Zajac buried the rebound of a Miles Wood shot 32 seconds into the first period for a Devils lead. Baffled, Chris Kreider then took a trigger penalty at 1:02, which counted as the second time in three games that the Rangers were penalized in the first two minutes of a game.

As the Devils blocked all lanes and squeezed into the middle past Blackwood, the Rangers were limited to one shot on goal for the first 11 minutes of the game.

After a scrum erupted in front of the Devils’ net early in the second period, Michael McLeod was penalized for brutality when he put Jacob Trouba in a header. With man advantage, Kreider was looking to send the puck back to Mika Zibanejad, but he ricocheted off Devils defenseman Ryan Murray’s skate and passed Blackwood to tie the game 1-1 at 2:50 of the second. .

Less than two minutes later, Georgiev got a shot from Ty Smith, but lost sight of the puck behind him and Hughes rushed in to make it a two-goal game. Hughes started the next play as well, blocking a shot from Trouba and going all alone for the lead 3-1 at 8:38 of the second.

The Rangers reduced their deficit to one on their third power play of the night, when Adam Fox sent a blind pass to Zibanejad for a quick one-timer. But Trouba took a penalty at 3:38 of the second and Hughes prepared Miles Wood to make it a 4-2 game with four minutes left in the second.

A shot from PK Subban to the point later in the middle frame almost made it 5-2, but Quinn challenged for offside and the goal was struck.

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