Lazar scores with 23 seconds left, Devils rally past Islanders 

NEWARK, N.J. -- Curtis Lazar scored with 23 seconds left for the New Jersey Devils, who scored three unanswered goals in the third period to rally for a 5-4 win against the New York Islanders at Prudential Center on Tuesday.

Lazar backhanded a rebound in front for his fourth goal in 18 games after scoring three in 49 last season.

"My game doesn't really change," Lazar said. "I'm not even trying to score. I'm just playing those hard minutes, but it is pretty cool to see that success ... they're not always the prettiest thing but when I get a chance and able to capitalize on it, it's good. It's been a long road, but I love the spot I'm in, my role, and I couldn't be happier here."

Jack Hughes scored on a wrist shot from the right face-off circle to make it 4-3 at 5:08 before Nico Hischier scored a power-play goal off a rebound in front during a 4-on-3 advantage to tie it 4-4 at 11:10.

"It's a big-time win, especially against a team that's ahead of us in the [Metropolitan Division], so for us to come back and get that in regulation, we were going to take the points any way we could," Hughes said. "But that's a pretty gutsy win out of us."

Hughes had a goal and two assists, and Dawson Mercer, Michael McLeod and Lazar each had a goal and an assist for the Devils (10-9-1), who have won two straight. Vitek Vanecek made 14 saves on 18 shots before being replaced by Akira Schmid at 13:05 of the second period. Schmid made eight saves.

"It's unfortunate, but I think that's been how the seasons been going," Hughes said. "We haven't really been playing well in front of our goalie. He yanked [Vanecek] and 'Schmido' comes in and we get the win, but that's not the full story. We obviously didn't play that well in front of 'V’, so we want to put up a better foot forward for him next time."

Mathew Barzal had a goal and two assists, and Ilya Sorokin made 28 saves for the Islanders (8-7-6), who had their six-game point streak end (3-0-3).

"This one stings bad," New York coach Lane Lambert said. "A lot of it has been stick carelessness. It's 4-on-4 ... you can't have a careless stick, and that's what happens. And next thing you know, the score is tied."

Bo Horvat scored a power-play goal on a shot from the right face-off circle to give the Islanders a 1-0 lead at 5:16 of the first period.

"I thought we played a really good 40 minutes," Horvat said. "In the third, they get that one to make it 4-3 and we took an unfortunate penalty and they capitalized on it. We wanted to get it to overtime and get a point."

McLeod scored a wrist shot from low in the left face-off circle to tie it 1-1 at 10:29.

Mercer converted a 2-on-1 with Hughes to give the Devils a 2-1 lead at 4:19 of the second period.

Barzal tied it 2-2 when he controlled a stretch pass from Anders Lee at the Devils blue line and scored on a breakaway at 8:24.

Cal Clutterbuck pushed it to 3-2 just 1:16 later on a backhand with his back to the net while falling to the ice at 9:40.

Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored his first goal of the season for the Islanders on a snap shot from the left circle for a 4-2 lead at 13:05.

"I thought we outplayed them for the most part," Pageau said. "This was not the result we wanted, but we'll try to forget it as quick as we can."

Hughes has 10 points (five goals, five assists) in his past five games against the Islanders.

"As a group we just needed to believe in ourselves and coach came in and gave us a pep talk, but I think we didn't hate our game, we just had a few minutes there where we let it slip a bit," Hughes said. "It was all about belief and believing that we can come back."

NOTES: Defenseman Mike Reilly had three shots on goal in 10:42 of ice time in his Islanders debut after he was claimed off waivers from the Florida Panthers on Saturday. ... Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton sustained an upper-body injury in the second period and did not play in the third. … New Jersey became the 20th team this month to have a multigoal comeback win. This marks the fifth month in NHL history to feature at least 20 such comebacks, joining November 2009 (21), December 2013 (20), February 2019 (24) and October 2019 (21).