Here are some observations from the game:
• In overtime, Bratt stole the puck from Montreal’s Alex Newhook – with some help from a Timo Meier stick check – at the Devils blue line. He headed up ice on a breakaway. He deked to his backhand and slid the puck through the five-hole of Jakub Dobes to give the Devils the victory.
Bratt: “I just tried to read the goalie’s depth and see what I have. I came in with a lot of speed. I felt pretty comfortable in that situation to make him believe I’ll do one thing and I just tried to read what the goalie was doing.”
• Meier hadn’t scored a goal in his past nine games. He would snap out of that slump in a massive way in the most opportune time.
With the goalie pulled and an extra attacker on the ice, Meier set himself up at the side of the left post. Jack Hughes threw the puck at the net and through a slew of bodies, Meier found the puck and tucked it just inside the post to even the score late in the third.
• Cody Glass joked this morning that he isn’t a big scorer, saying: “I’m not going to score every night. We have Jack (Hughes) and Nico (Hischier) and all those guys that can do that.”
But his actions proved otherwise in his first game back since missing seven contests with an upper-body injury. Glass picked up the puck at the Montreal blue line, skated it to the left circle and ripped a shot low glove for the tally to open the game’s scoring at 1:53. Welcome back.
Keefe: "I thought Glass was very noticable and made a big difference for our team. Just another guy skating through the middle of the ice. You can put him out against anybody. That really helps with the matchups and such, against a solid team like this. That's been really good. We really missed him when he was gone. His game is growing for me. It's growing defensively, he's growing his confidence offensively. It's good to see him step right in, the goal aside, I thought he had a strong game."
• Forward Ondrej Palat finally got on the board with his first goal of the season. It came as the result of a great feed from Simon Nemec. The young blueliner had the puck below the goal line. He was heading toward the back of the Montreal net, but then made a blind backhand pass to Palat, who shot it inside the blocker arm. It’s his first tally in his last 16 games.
• Goaltender Jacob Markstrom made two incredible saves back-to-back on NHL-leading goal scorer (tied) Cole Caufield on a breakaway. Caufield tried to go low but Markstrom kicked the puck with his left pad. Unfortunately, the puck went right back to Caufield and from below the right circle he sent another puck toward the net. But Markstrom pushed off his right skate and stretched out his left pad to do a split kick save on the follow-up. It was an incredible sequence.