Devils defeat Rangers for 10th straight win on road

NEW YORK --The New Jersey Devils came back from two goals down in the first period to tie a team record with their 10th straight road win, 5-3 against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

The Devils also set an NHL record for the most wins in November (13) and have won 16 of 17 games since Oct. 25. New Jersey has not lost on the road since its season opener Oct. 13 (5-2 at the Philadelphia Flyers), tying a 10-game road winning streak from Feb. 27-April 7, 2001.
"It feels good, but we're not where we want to be yet," Devils captain Nico Hischier said. "We've still got tons of hockey left. We're really happy with our start, but we're not even halfway through. You can't buy anything with that, so we've just got to keep improving, keep getting better. That's our goal."
Yegor Sharangovich had two goals, Jack Hughes scored, and Tomas Tatar had a goal and an assist for the Devils (19-4-0), who got goals from each of their four forward lines in the first 30 minutes. Vitek Vanecek made 35 saves.

Artemi Panarin ended a 12-game goal drought, and K'Andre Miller had two assists for the Rangers (10-9-4), who have lost three in a row and have blown multigoal leads in each of their past two games, including 3-0 in the third period before losing 4-3 to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
Igor Shesterkin, who made 33 saves Monday, put the blame on himself.
"Goalie played [expletive] game again," Shesterkin said. "I feel so bad and play so bad. I'm ashamed.
"Every goal is easy play for me. I have to stop those. If our team wants to win the game, I have to play better."
New York coach Gerard Gallant wouldn't single out Shesterkin when asked if last season's Vezina Trophy winner as the top goalie in the NHL is a problem in the Rangers' struggles.
"The team is a problem, the whole group of us, coaches, the whole group," Gallant said. "We've got to turn it around."
It looked like that might happen for the Rangers when they went up 2-0 on goals from Panarin and Mika Zibanejad just 3:01 into the first period.

Panarin made it 1-0 at 1:20, scoring on a 2-on-1. Zibanejad made it 2-0 just 1:41 later, knocking in a rebound after Vanecek fumbled Jacob Trouba's point shot.
"I thought we played real well, then let down a little bit and they came at us," Gallant said. "That's the way they play. They put lots of offense at you and they play fast. They showed their game tonight."
New Jersey tied it before the first intermission.
Tatar played the puck from his skate to stick in the right face-off circle and scored on a backhand to cut it to 2-1 at 7:33.
Sharangovich tied it 2-2 at 13:25, scoring unassisted from the bottom of the right circle after New York forward Ryan Carpenter played the puck out of the corner into the middle. The sequence started with Trouba's turnover at the Rangers blue line.
"Not a great start, but we knew there was lots of hockey left and right back in the first period two huge goals," Hischier said. "We just kept playing our game."

Devils coach Lindy Ruff said he thought about calling a timeout after the Rangers' second goal.
"Sometimes when you call a timeout, you're sending a message like, '[Oh man], we're in trouble,' and I didn't think we were really in that much trouble," Ruff said. "All I said on the bench was, 'Let's go get the next goal. If we get the next goal we're back in the game.'"
Hughes gave them a 3-2 lead at 5:44 of the second period by catching Dawson Mercer's high flip pass in stride and sliding the puck through Shesterkin's five-hole.
Michael McLeod made it 4-2 at 9:40. Devils forward Miles Wood's shot deflected off Shesterkin and the crossbar, but Rangers defenseman Zac Jones couldn't clear the puck out of the slot, allowing McLeod to bang it in.
"We like our play right now, but we can't get cocky about it because things can slip," Wood said. "We have to hold each other accountable here."
Vincent Trocheck's power-play goal at 13:18 of the third period got New York to 4-3, but Vanecek made five more saves before Sharangovich made it 5-3 at 19:44 with an empty-net goal.
"I don't think it's a secret that there's some frustration," Trouba said. "That's normal where we're at. We talk about it, stay together as a group. That's what we discussed, things aren't easy right now and we're going to keep fighting and battling until this thing turns for us. There's definitely a sense of urgency."

NOTES:The Devils are the eighth team in NHL history, and the first since the Minnesota Wild in 2014-15, to win at least 10 straight road games. Minnesota (2014-15) and the Detroit Red Wings (2005-06) hold the record of 12. … New Jersey is 17-0-0 when Hischier, who had one assist, has at least one point, and 9-0-0 when Hughes scores a goal. … Devils forward Alexander Holtz was plus-1 with one shot on goal in 10:02 of ice time, and Nico Daws served as the backup goalie after each was recalled from Utica of the American Hockey League earlier Monday.