Hall has four points in Devils win against Penguins

NEWARK, N.J. -- Taylor Hall had two goals and two assists to help the New Jersey Devils end a three-game losing streak with a 4-2 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins at Prudential Center on Tuesday.

Hall scored his first game-winning goal of the season after taking a pass in the slot from Travis Zajac and beating goalie Casey DeSmith with a wrist shot 8:07 into the third period for a 3-2 lead.
"With Zajac] being a righty, he's got a good lane to make that pass, but when his stick is on the ice he's pretty strong and always seems to win those 50-50 battles," Hall said. "It was a great play by him, not only to make the pass, but win the battle."
***[WATCH: [All Penguins vs. Devils highlights]*
The assist by Zajac was the 300th of his NHL career, all with the Devils.
"I've been lucky to play with some really good players over the years," Zajac said. "I've learned a lot and had a lot of great experiences. I'm excited to keep playing this game. Hopefully I can keep going."

Hall scored into an empty net with 27 seconds remaining to make it 4-2.
Zajac also scored, Damon Severson had a goal and an assist, and Keith Kinkaid made 29 saves for the Devils (7-8-1).
"We just kept playing and had the right mindset the whole game and that's kind of what kept us going," Zajac said. "We know we can get chances as a team and create offense. We just need to be hard in the areas we need to be hard in."
Phil Kessel had a goal and an assist, Sidney Crosby had two assists, and DeSmith made 31 saves for the Penguins (7-6-3), who are 1-5-1 in the past seven games.
"It's frustrating because we're trying to find wins right now and can't seem to find them with any level of consistency," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. "I thought we had spurts in the game where we were good. We didn't force them to work hard enough for some of the goals they scored and that, for me, is discouraging."

Pittsburgh's Jake Guentzel scored 4:04 into the third period to tie it 2-2. New Jersey coach John Hynes challenged the play for goalie interference on Crosby, but it was ruled that Devils forward Blake Coleman caused Crosby to make contact with Kinkaid before the puck crossed the goal line.
"We have to start digging out," Guentzel said. "We were starting to play better there. We just have to get back to what we do best and get pucks deep and go from there."
The Devils took a 2-1 lead when Severson scored off a slap shot from the point 8:06 into the second period.
Zajac gave New Jersey a 1-0 lead 28 seconds into the game when he scored off the rebound of a Severson shot after DeSmith made the initial save against Hall. It was Hall's 100th assist in 164 regular-season games with the Devils.

"This wasn't an effort where we solely relied on our goaltender to steal a game," Hall said. "We did a good job of eliminating chances against a high-powered team. Our game has to continue to grow that way. When we play strong in our end it allows us to just play more free up the ice and create more, have the puck more. It was a solid night for us."
Kessel scored a power-play goal off a deflection at the left post to tie it 1-1 at 13:57.

They said it

"We made some mistakes that cost us and that's part of it. I thought we had an effort in spurts but it has to be more consistent. You have to be willing to embrace a hard game, stop pucks and have three people close in the offensive zone when we are fighting 50-50s."-- Penguins coach Mike Sullivan
"The defensive part of the game is about doing your job, doing your assignment and doing it every time. We were more consistent tonight, and when we didn't have the puck and had to defend we were much more structured and committed." -- Devils coach John Hynes
"We kept battling and the hockey gods had our back. We wanted to work on our defensive structure and play from the [goalie out] and I think we did a good job. I can't say enough about the blocked shots, it was a key part of the win." -- Devils goalie Keith Kinkaid

Need to know

Evgeni Malkin became the fourth Penguins player to play 800 games, joining Mario Lemieux (915), Crosby (880) and Jaromir Jagr (806). ... Crosby was 13-for-28 (46 percent) on face-offs. ... It was the eighth time in Hall's NHL career he scored four points in a game. … The Devils had 14 blocked shots. ... Devils center Nico Hischier missed the first game of his NHL career with an upper-body injury. ... The Devils are 5-1-1 at Prudential Center and 1-7-0 on the road.

What's next

Penguins: Host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, ATTSN-PT, SUN, NHL.TV)
Devils: At the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSP, MSG+, NHL.TV)