The New Jersey Devils will try to complete a sweep of their two-game road trip on Friday when they face the Utah Mammoth in Salt Lake City.
The Devils opened the trip with a 2-1 shootout victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Las Vegas on Wednesday as goaltender Jake Allen turned in a sparkling performance, making 36 saves and then stopping the shootout attempts by Pavel Dorofeyev, Mark Stone and Mitch Marner.
Connor Brown scored in regulation and Jesper Bratt tallied what proved to be the game-winner in the second round of the shootout when he roofed a backhand shot past Carter Hart.
“Nothing was getting by Jake,” New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe said. “That was a great performance by him. … When you have that type of goaltending, you’re going to have a real good chance. But I thought the guys in front of him also did a real nice job against a real good team.”
Allen got a little help from the goal posts in overtime when Vegas had a 4-on-3 power play for the final 1:53 after Dawson Mercer picked up a hooking penalty on Stone. Marner caromed shots off each post on the ensuing power play while Stone also had a shot trickle off the bottom of the right post.
“They took it to us not too long ago at home (a 3-0 loss on Dec. 5) and we wanted just to right the ship a little bit,” Allen said. “Result aside, we wanted to make progress here and start pushing a little bit, get our game back in order, build some consistency with our group, and I thought (Wednesday) was a good step.”
Now it’s up to the Devils to build on the tough road win on Friday night.
“Maybe you don’t win the next one, but we’ve just got to progress here,” Allen said. “This is a good start. It’s a short road trip. We’ve got another chance in Utah against a good, skilled team before we go home and before we finish (going into) the break. I think our mindset is we want to finish the last four or five games on the right foot and take a break and then keep churning after Christmas.”
Utah comes in off an impressive 4-1 victory on Wednesday at Atlantic Division leader Detroit in the second game of a road back-to-back that began with a 4-1 loss on Tuesday at Boston.
Clayton Keller had a goal and an assist, Nick Schmaltz picked up his 300th NHL assist on Keller’s goal and Karel Vejmelka made 27 saves as the Mammoth won for the third time in four games.
“Tough back-to-back, and to be able to get two points is huge for us,” Schmaltz said.
Jack McBain scored what proved to be the game-winner to put Utah up 2-0 in the second period and Dylan Guenther scored a key insurance goal to make it 3-1 late in the third period, his sixth goal in the last six games.
“We need to keep rolling,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “I think we’re playing a simpler game with more drive, with more net presence, with more dirty goals, going in the dirty area. I think that paid off.”
