Devils Pull Off Miraculous Comeback Win v. Habs | GAME STORY

NEWARK, NJ - The Devils pulled off a miraculous 4-3 overtime comeback victory against the Montreal Canadiens Thursday night at Prudential Center.

New Jersey trailed late in the third period when Timo Meier evened the score with just 1:10 remaining in regulation with an extra attacker on the ice to force OT. Jesper Bratt finished the comeback by scoring at 1:33 into the extra session on a breakaway.

The Devils had a 2-1 lead entering the third period on goals from Cody Glass and Ondrej Palat. But a pair of Canadiens goals from Jake Evans and Oliver Kapanen gave Montreal a 3-2 lead before the late Devils comeback.

"The plan was to hold the lead going into the third, but that's sports," defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler said. "It's always up and down. We never gave up. We tied it at the end and in the end we won it in overtime."

“This is a nice one to win,” Meier said. “It just showed us as a team the fine line of being in the lead and what we can’t do that gives the other team momentum and chances to score goals. I think that was a good example in this game and we saw what we need to do to be successful and the things that don’t allow us to be successful.”

New Jersey is the first team in the NHL to win 10 games. The Devils remain undefeated at home this year, improving to 6-0-0 at the Rock.

“It’s a great start (at home),” Bratt said. “We want to be a hard team to play against in this building. We want to have good momentum playing here. For the start of the season, we’re really enjoying playing in this building in front of our own fans. So far, we’ve created a tough place to win against us in. We want to continue that.”

Montreal, which also received a goal from Kirby Dach, suffered its first OT loss of the season (5-0-1).

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.

• The Devils lost defenseman Dougie Hamilton early in the second period. He played only three shifts before the Devils were down to five D-men to finish the game.

Keefe: "I don't know how (Hamilton) is. He'll be evaluated tomorrow and give us a better sense of where he's at. It's not an easy task. We're already down important pieces. To play five guys for little over half the game, you're asking a lot. You have two young defensemen there, you have (Dennis) Cholowski who is just starting to play for the first time all season. It was a lot to ask of our D corps. But I thought the forwards did a better job of helping out here tonight and we need more of that."