Devils win front of end of pair against Islanders
NEWARK, N.J. -- In an important division battle pitting one team struggling mightily on home ice and another with a league-low seven victories on the road, it was the New Jersey Devils that got the best of the visiting New York Islanders, skating to a 3-2 victory Saturday night at the Prudential Center.
The win was only the third in their past 12 home games for the Devils (25-23-10), while the Islanders (26-21-10) lost their third straight road contest.
The two teams will switch sides Sunday when the Islanders host the Devils at the Barclays Center in the back end of this weekend home-and-home set.
Cory Schneider excelled in goal for the Devils, finishing with 40 saves, including 20 in the second period when New Jersey was outshot 20-8 yet managed to score the only goal of the period.
His most important save came at the 8:10 mark of the first period when Schneider denied Islanders captain John Tavares with his right pad on a penalty shot. The clutch stop came exactly one minute after the Devils had taken a 1-0 lead on Devante Smith-Pelly's third goal of the season.
Schneider has now faced 16 penalty shots in his career, and stopped all but two.
New Jersey's Travis Zajac also played an important role in the victory, producing his seventh multiple-point game of the season by scoring his 11th goal and assisting on Smith-Pelly's tally.
In addition, a hard hit by Zajac near the Devils net briefly sent the Islanders' top goal scorer, Anders Lee, to the dressing room in the first period.
After being a healthy scratch in six straight games, and eight of ten, Smith-Pelly beat Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss between the pads on a breakaway 7:10 into the game for his first goal since Nov. 17, giving the Devils an early 1-0 lead.
Zajac, who sprung Smith-Pelly with a perfect head-man bank pass off the right-wing boards, made it 2-0 New Jersey with a shorthanded goal at 8:49 of the second period. The shorthanded goal was the fifth for the Devils this season, and came off a left-wing snipe after a two-on-one feed from Adam Henrique.
Devils rookie Pavel Zacha scored a power-play goal at 6:21 of the third before Andrew Ladd snapped Schneider's shutout bid at 8:58. The goal was Ladd's 15th of the season, third in the past two games, and seventh in the last 11 contests.
The Islanders cut New Jersey's lead to 3-2 with 6:12 remaining in regulation on Anthony Beauvillier's fifth goal, but could not finish the comeback.
NOTES: The Devils traded C Sergey Kalinin to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for D Viktor Loov, who was then assigned to Albany (AHL). ... Loov, 24, has four games of NHL experience. ... Veteran Devils LW Michael Cammalleri was a healthy scratch for the first time this season. Cammalleri has not scored a goal in 18 consecutive games, and has only one in his last 33. ... New Jersey also scratched D Seth Helgeson. ... The Islanders were again without RW Cal Clutterbuck (lower body) and C Shane Prince (upper body), while D Adam Pelech was a healthy scratch.