Devils Come Up Short in Comeback Against Golden Knights | GAME STORY

The Devils' spirited third-period comeback fell short in a 5-3 setback to the Vegas Golden Knights Thursday night at Prudential Center.
The Devils scored the first goal of the game by Jack Hughes. Trailing 4-1 in the third period they received goals from Tomas Tatar and Jimmy Vesey to cut it to 4-3. Hughes appeared to have scored his second goal of the game with 25 seconds left, but it was waved off due to being offside.
Vegas goal scorers were Dylan Coghlan, William Carrier, William Karlsson, Nicolas Roy and Jonathan Marchessault (empty net).
"From where we were at as a team I thought we gave it everything we had tonight," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "We needed to play a tight game. We made a couple mistakes that hurt us. We battled hard to come back. We just left too many plays out there."

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The Devils travel to Detroit to play the Red Wings Saturday night in the Motor City. The game can be seen on MSG+ and heard on the Devils Hockey Network, including right here at NewJerseyDevils.com. Puck drop is 8:08 p.m. ET.
Here are some observations from the game...
- No matter the situation, no matter the circumstance, these Devils will not quit. The frustration was palpable when they found themselves trailing 4-1 despite playing a failure even tilt against the Golden Knights. But despite being down by three goals and with 12 minutes left to play, the Devils went back to work.

It was a pair of special teams tallies that started the rally. A power-play goal from Tomas Tatar followed by a shorthanded tally from Jimmy Vesey cut the deficit to 4-3.

The effort and fight is still burning in the Devils. Though effort and compete has never been their issue. It's the finishing and scoring. And there wasn't enough of it tonight. The Devils are running out of time for moral victories. They need points.

"We were definitely making a push in the third period," Vesey said. "It's funny the way the game works. We've lost more than we would have liked lately, but there are stretches of games where we're playing well. We just need to capitalize a little bit more or bear down a little more defensively. At the end of the day it's not good enough. A couple mistakes cost us."

- The work of the fourth line (Vesey, Michael McLeod and Nathan Bastian) was outstanding. They shutdown Vegas' vaunted top unit of Chandler Stephenson, Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone. The trio was held off the scoresheet, a rarity this season.

Pacioretty entered the game with a franchise-best seven-game goal-scoring streak (10 totals). That streak ends at seven.

- The Devils were already missing captain Nico Hischier and defensemen Ryan Graves and Christian Jaros, all three of whom are in COVID-19 protocol. They added forward Jesper Boqvist to the protocol and were without blueliner P.K. Subban, who was held out of the game for precautionary reasons. - The Devils were dealing with a combination of COVID, colds, flus and illnesses against the Flyers Tuesday night. The club entered the game knowing it wouldn't have its usual energy or jump. Thus, the Devils needed to play a smarter and simpler game in order to compete against Philadelphia. Instead, they made several unforced errors, turnovers and self-inflicted mistakes that cost them in a 6-1 drubbing.

However, the club learned its lesson from that loss. The Devils, still not quite 100 percent and still weathering some illnesses, played a much improved, smarter and disciplined brand of hockey against Vegas. They errored on the side of caution. They stayed above the Knights. They didn't force plays. They didn't cough up the puck in the dangerous areas. As such, they were able to negate Vegas' speed and level the ice for themselves. The Devils gave themselves a chance to win, until Vegas pulled away in the third period.

"We learned some of the lessons but there's such a fine line," Ruff said. "The margin of victory for us is very thin. It's even thinner when you take five, six guys out of our roster."

- The Devils couldn't have asked for a better start. They opened the game with a goal in the first 101 seconds of the contest. Defenseman Dougie Hamilton's shot from the point was kicked out by goalie Robin Lehner to the stick of Jack Hughes, who buried it with ease. Crash the net and good things happen. - Two major positives in the game came on the same shot. Veteran forward Tomas Tatar tallied with a wicked shot glove-side to beat Lehner. It was also a power-play goal. The tally should be good for Tatar's confidence and the man-advantage tally should help the unit feel better about itself. A double victory. - Goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood had a solid bounce-back effort. You could hardly fault him for allowing five goals in two periods in Philadelphia. He was the "sickest" player on the team according to Ruff. And he battled and gutted it out for the team. It was obvious he was lethargic and didn't have the energy.

Blackwood held the forte in the opening two periods, stopping 18 of 20 shots. While the dam did break in the third period, Blackwood did everything within his power to keep it a close game.