Hayton's first NHL goal helps Coyotes rally past Devils

NEWARK, N.J. -- Barrett Hayton scored his first NHL goal, and the Arizona Coyotes rallied for a 5-3 win against the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center on Friday.

Hayton, the No. 5 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, scored on a 2-on-1 with Nick Schmaltz 1:45 into the third period to give the Coyotes a 4-3 lead.
"It's definitely a pretty cool experience," Hayton said. "It's something that I dreamed of for the longest time, and it was a great play by Schmaltz]. There was a turnover in the neutral zone, and he got it with speed on the 2-on-1 and widened out, made a little fake, and pushed it around their defenseman, and I was just going to the net."
***[WATCH: [All Coyotes vs. Devils highlights]*
Schmaltz and Oliver Ekman-Larsson each had a goal and an assist, and Antti Raanta made 32 saves for the Coyotes (6-3-1), who have won six of their past eight games.

"I don't know if it was pretty, but we found a way and everybody battled hard," Ekman-Larsson said. "Some nights, it's going to be games like that, but good teams find a way to win. I feel like we're a good team. We stuck with it and battled really hard."
Jack Hughes had a goal and two assists for his first multipoint game in the NHL, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 12 saves for the Devils (2-5-2), who outshot Arizona 35-17.

"I think tonight was a game I felt pretty good, obviously," Hughes said. "It would have been nice for the team to win. We played a really good hockey game, made a few mistakes. That's not a good loss, but I felt good out there at times, I felt confident."
Sami Vatanen gave New Jersey a 1-0 lead when his centering pass from the left face-off circle went in off defenseman Alex Goligoski's left skate at 16:29 of the first period.

Hughes made it 2-0 on the power play with a snap shot over Raanta's left shoulder at 18:26.
Schmaltz cut it to 2-1 with 17 seconds remaining in the first on a wrist shot from the high slot, and Michael Grabner scored a shorthanded goal on a breakaway 2:01 into the second period to tie it 2-2.
"We got a really important goal at the end of the first period, so the game was still alive, and suddenly [Grabner] got the breakaway and scored," Raanta said. "After the second period, we knew that if we stuck together and played good defense, we'd get the chances. We got the early goal in the third, and it was nice to get a win after what happened last night (4-2 loss at the New York Islanders)."
Pavel Zacha scored off a wrist shot from the left circle after receiving a stretch pass from Hughes at 13:07 of the second to give the Devils a 3-2 lead, but Ekman-Larsson scored 31 seconds later to tie it 3-3 at 13:38 following a turnover by Zacha.
Clayton Keller scored his first of the season into an empty net at 18:20 to make it 5-3.

They said it

"You're not really looking across the bench (at Hughes). You just want to make the impact you can make and produce. I'm able to create some offense, so I think regardless who you're playing you have that mindset and want to produce. Obviously, no one is naive to who's playing, but you just play your own game and take advantage of your opportunity." -- Coyotes forward Barrett Hayton
"I could have been better. I was sick with the flu for a couple of days, so I was trying to get my body back to good again. It was a weird kind of game, there wasn't much action and then there was a scoring chance. If I make two more saves, we win in the end. I definitely could have been better, but I'll get back to that in practice." -- Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood

Need to know

Hayton was in the lineup replacing forward Brad Richardson, who sustained a lower-body injury against the Islanders. ... Grabner's shorthanded goal was his 22nd in the NHL, the second most among active NHL players behind Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand (26). ... Schmaltz has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in his past eight games. ... New Jersey is 15-for-15 on the penalty kill in its past three games. ... Hughes has five points (two goals, three assists) during a three-game point streak and became the fifth 18-year-old in Devils/Colorado Rockies/Kansas City Scouts history to score at least one goal in consecutive team games. ... Devils center Nico Hischier had no shots on goal and was minus-2 in 13:14 of ice time in his return to the lineup after missing the previous two games because of an upper-body injury.

What's next

Coyotes:At the Buffalo Sabres on Monday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, TVAS, MSG-B, FS-A PLUS, NHL.TV)
Devils:Host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; MSG+, SUN, NHL.TV)