NEWARK, N.J. — With their season on the road as soon as once more, Jack Hughes stepped up for the New Jersey Devils and the budding famous person delivered together with his stick, his skates and even a number of completely surprising punches.
Hughes scored two objectives, arrange two extra and had a close to combat with Carolina star Sebastian Aho because the Devils started the duty of digging out of one other gap with a 8-4 win over the Hurricanes in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Sunday.
Hughes set the tone early with an help on Timo Meier’s purpose with a cross from behind the web and ripping a second shot previous Frederik Andersen 5 minutes later.
“I think we were just focused right from the get-go,” mentioned Hughes, who’s nominated for this 12 months’s Lady Byng award for sportsmanship. “Up and down the lineup, a lot of compete – a lot of guys winning their battles, a lot of skating. That’s our game.”
What wasn’t Hughes’ sport was his second-period dust-up with Aho in entrance of the Carolina internet. Hughes picked up the Finnish participant and tried to physique slam him to the ice. A few punches have been tried with no harm inflicted.
Hughes, who has by no means had a preventing main, bought two minutes for roughing and Aho bought 4 minutes, the additional two due to a cross-check.
“I think that kills his chance for the Lady Byng,” Devils coach Lindy Ruff quipped. “And really, what was he thinking?”
Besides Meier, Nico Hischier and Damon Severson added their first objectives of playoffs and Vitek Vanecek returned to the web and made 26 saves and even had an help on Miles Wood’s third-period breakaway.
“It feels good. It’s a series now so that’s what we wanted to do, have a bounce-back game and scoring eight goals is a statement,” Hischier mentioned. “We still have a couple things to clean up but, hey, we’ll take a win now and it’s 2-1.”
The eight objectives have been probably the most for the Devils in a playoff sport since they beat Washington 10-4 on April 22, 1988.
Michael McLeod capped a three-goal opening interval with a short-handed purpose and 19-year-old defenseman Luke Hughes — Jack’s brother — made his playoff debut and picked up two assists. Dawson Mercer had three assists.
Carolina set an NHL file, scoring three short-handed purpose within the sport. Jordan Martinook scored on a penalty shot within the second interval with the Canes down a person and Jordan Staal and Seth Jarvis scored 50 seconds aside on the identical penalty kill within the third.
“We knew they were going to come with a push,” Staal mentioned. “They were ready for us. They didn’t do anything crazy special. They got the puck in and played our style of game. They did it better than us tonight.”
Aho had the opposite purpose for the Hurricanes. Andersen, who allowed two objectives on 48 pictures within the first two video games of the sequence, gave up 4 on 12 pictures earlier than being changed by Pyotr Kochetkov early within the second interval.
This was a very totally different sport than the primary two in Raleigh, North Carolina, which the Canes received by a mixed 11-2 rating. They dominated from begin to end in each video games.
“We were not good,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour mentioned. “I have never seen us play like that.”
Meier opened the scoring at 5:58, stuffing a puck previous Andersen from in shut. Hughes adopted after taking a cross from Smith and McLeod added his shorthanded purpose in shut at 12:31.
It was by no means shut after that.
INJURIES
Devils defenseman Ryan Graves didn’t play due to an upper-body damage sustained in Game 2. Luke Hughes changed him and coach Lindy Ruff additionally dressed Smith, giving him seven D-men. … Hurricanes goaltender Antti Raanta has not dressed because the backup the final two video games due to an sickness. Kochetkov has been the backup, and made 18 saves on 22 pictures.
NOTES
Carolina failed in its try and take its first 3-0 lead in a sequence since spherical 2 in 2019. … The Devils want to turn out to be the third workforce in NHL historical past to win a number of sequence throughout a playoff 12 months after overcoming a 2-0 deficit. They have been down two video games within the first spherical towards the Rangers. Boston achieved the feat in 2011, two years after Pittsburgh. … Ondrej Palat had a purpose and an help and now has 101 profession playoff factors (51-50) in 148 video games.
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