Glass lifts Devils past Senators with 3rd-period goal

OTTAWA -- Cody Glass broke a tie with 7:36 remaining in the third period and the New Jersey Devils snapped a five-game losing streak with a 4-3 win against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.

“Obviously, we were going through a bit of a streak there,” Glass said, “but we just came together, and now it’s time to kind of put our game together, put it behind us and just have a clear mind.”

Glass, who also had an assist, scored on a cross-slot pass from Arseny Gritsyuk, immediately after Connor Brown had forced a Senators turnover on the forecheck.

“I thought they were great in all three zones,” New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe said of the Gritsyuk-Glass-Brown line. “Glass had a lot of great individual puck battles and got us through the neutral zone, competed in the face-off dot. All three of them made plays.”

Gritsyuk had a goal and two assists, Brown had three assists, Paul Cotter and Simon Nemec each scored, and Jacob Markstrom made 35 saves for the Devils (17-12-1).

“The harder they came to the net, the better ‘Marky’ played,” Keefe said. “I don’t know if there’s a greater competitor that we have other than Marky. So, you start going hard to the net like that and he’s going to be that much more engaged in the game and competing.”

Drake Batherson scored twice, Tim Stutzle had a goal and an assist, Dylan Cozens and Brady Tkachuk each had two assists, and Linus Ullmark made 28 saves for Ottawa (13-12-4), which has lost five of its past six games (1-5-0).

“Frustrating that we didn’t get a point out of that game, or win the game, quite honestly,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “Every night’s a little bit different, but we’ve said it three nights in a row that we played a pretty good game and didn’t get anything out of it.”

Ottawa was 3-for-3 on the power play; New Jersey was 0-for-3.

“Tonight, I mean, we gave up three power-play goals and we were still able to gut it out,” Brown said. “It speaks to how good our process was [at] 5-on-5 and how well we played. There’s a lot to be excited about. These are the types of stretches that, later in the season, you’re grateful for because you learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about your group. It’s good to see our team playing back to our identity.”

Batherson gave the Senators a 1-0 lead at 1:36 of the first period when he found a loose puck in a scramble around the crease and snuck it past Markstrom’s right pad on a power play.

“I think we’ve played pretty solid,” Batherson said of the team’s past six games. “Obviously, ran into a couple of hot goalies the two games before this, and then tonight we had a lot of shots and a lot of chances. I think it’d be more frustrating if we weren’t getting the looks, but we’ve just got to clean up a few areas, I think, and just keep playing the way we [are] and be confident.”

Nemec one-timed a centering pass from Brown on a rush to tie it 1-1 at 5:09.

Ottawa thought it had taken a 2-1 lead at 9:43 when Batherson redirected the puck into the net with his skate, but video review determined Batherson had scored with a kicking motion and the call on the ice was overturned.

Stutzle put a wrist shot five-hole on Markstrom from the top of the slot on a power play to make it 2-1 at 12:59.

“Tough loss, obviously. I thought we shot ourselves in the foot again,” Stutzle said. “At least our power play was good enough tonight, but I don’t think we’re scoring enough 5-on-5 goals.”

Gritsyuk scored on Brown’s rebound at the edge of the crease to tie it 2-2 at 17:59.

Cotter intercepted a Jordan Spence drop pass at the Senators’ blue line, skated in on a breakaway and slid a backhand between Ullmark’s pads to make it 3-2 at 4:21 of the second period.

“It was a big win for us, for sure, for the locker room,” Devils captain Nico Hischier said. “We’ve been working really hard lately and we deserved to win here. And obviously it feels good, but now we’ve got to get going again.”

Batherson scored his second goal of the game to tie it 3-3 at 10:35. Stutzle forced a turnover in the corner and the puck came to Cozens, who found Batherson in front for a tap-in on a power play.

“Still positive, still a long season,” Tkachuk said. “I know it’s going to get magnified because it’s happening now, but just a rough stretch of games that every team goes through. We’re going through it right now. We’ll be fine. But yeah, it’s frustrating. I’m not going to sugarcoat that.”

NOTES: New Jersey defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler had a game-high five blocks. … Ottawa has not scored a 5-on-5 goal since Tkachuk made it 5-2 at 12:43 of the third period against the Montreal Canadiens on Dec. 2. … With his 18th career multigoal game, Batherson surpassed Mike Fisher for 10th place on the franchise’s all-time list.