Hughes Scores Twice, But Stars Outshine Devils In 4-2 Victory

New Jersey Devils forward Nico Hischier (13) pursues the play against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the third period at Scotiabank Arena. Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images

The ice, left fallow for two weeks by the international clash of nations, proved to be a challenging surface for the Devils as they returned to action, ultimately losing 4-2 to the visiting Stars on Saturday, February 22nd. In a bright spot for New Jersey, Jack Hughes netted two goals. The Stars’ Casey DeSmith, though, was stellar, stopping 31 shots. The Devils head to Nashville to take on the Predators on Sunday, while the Dallas Stars head to New York to take on the Islanders in search of their third straight win.

Dallas Stars Lineup:

Robertson – Hintz – Johnston
Marchment – Duchene – Granlund
Benn – Bourque – Dadonov
Back – Steel – Stankoven

Harley – Lyubushkin
Lindell – Ceci
Bichsel – Dumba

DeSmith
Oettinger

New Jersey Devils Lineup:

Palat – Hughes – Bratt
Meier – Hischier – Noesen
Cotter – Haula – Mercer
Tatar – Lazar – Bastian

Dillon – Hamilton
Pesce – Kovacevic
Hughes – Nemec

Allen
Daws

On the Stars’ first shot on goal, Evgenii Dadonov opened the scoring at 16:02 in the first frame off the rebound of Mikael Granlund’s shot from below the right circle for his 16th goal of the season. Thomas Harley put up the second Stars’ tally not long after Dadonov’s goal at 14:16 when he fired a wrister past Jake Allen on the power play as he was skating up between the circles for his 10th of the season and his third in the past five games.

Jack Hughes cut it to 2-1 after a scoreless second period with his 25th of the season off a pass from Dougie Hamilton, who was just entering the Stars’ zone and got the puck from Jesper Bratt, who was in the left corner, and Hughes put a one-timer past Casey DeSmith from the right face-off circle with a power-play goal at 10:00. Matt Duchene had a quick response to the New Jersey goal, scoring on a wrist shot to make it 3-1 with his 23rd of the season. After skating into the high slot, he took a pass from Jamie Benn, sending the wrist shot past Jake Allen through a screen with 9:25 on the clock. At 8:21, Hughes found the back of the net on his second goal of the game, as well as his 26th of the season to cut it to 3-2 from the left circle on a snap shot after taking a pass from Bratt. To preserve the lead, DeSmith stopped Hamilton’s snap shot with a left pad save with 2:49 left in the third frame. Wyatt Johnston struck the empty Devils’ net for the 4-2 final with just nine seconds remaining in regulation.

Casey DeSmith on what he saw in the game, the Devils, and Jake Oettinger: “That’s a great team over there. It’s the first time I’ve seen them in a couple of years. As far as playing against them, they’re really dangerous. They’re a great rush team. Their PP seemed like it was clicking pretty well. They were good at getting shots from the slot and good up front. I mean, they did a lot of really good things tonight, and I was fortunate enough to come out on the right side of this one,” – “He’s great. He supports me, I support him. We bounce things off each other, I enjoy talking to him when I come to the bench, and we have a good friendship, so it’s fun sharing a net with him. I look forward to a couple more years of it.”

Jack Hughes on the Devils’ game and the third period: “I actually really liked our team’s game. I thought we came with a good pop today and good energy, and I thought we played a pretty good 60 minutes. I mean, we would have liked to come out of the gates down two-nothing, but good effort. We need to bring that same effort tomorrow night. …We get ourselves back in the game and then we give up another right away, so eliminate that, but good push by our team, good belief, and we’ve got to just keep going coming out of this break. That’s a good start for us, good effort, and we got to just continue with that.”