In Newark, Vitek Vanecek made 32 saves in a 4-3 win for the New Jersey Devils over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.
Detroit kept the game close. but did not have an extra cylinder make it over the hump.
“Vitek made a lot of good saves until we found our game,” New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff said. “We didn’t want to start a game like that; they were the better team in the first period. I thought we turned the corner in the second but overall, it wasn’t by any means a Picasso that we drew up there.”
Daniel Sprong staked the Red Wings to a 1-0 lead at 12:14 of the middle frame.
Jack Hughes scored to tie the game, 1-1, at 13:39, his second of the game came just over five minutes later for a 2-1 lead to New Jersey.
Midway through the third period, Alex DeBrincat scored his first with Detroit on the power play to tie the game, 2-2.
“We’ll take the first and third (periods), but the second period just got away from us with turnovers,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. “Husso made some big saves. They are a fast team that gets chances, and they got chances.”
Dougie Hamilton restored the New Jersey lead, 3-2, at 15:37 of the third.
“It’s good for us to get the first win,” Hamilton said. “I think that’ll help us with our confidence and we’ll get right back at it tomorrow (against the Arizona Coyotes at Prudential Center).”
New Jersey added an empty-net goal from Erik Haula for a 4-2 advantage with 91 seconds left on the game clock.
“It was an emotional game and emotions were high on both benches,” Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get a point.”
Detroit connected on a power play goal from Robby Fabbri with less than a minute left in the game for the 4-3 final.
“I thought in the second period we got going pretty good for a while, there were pockets of good play,” Ruff said. “I know consistently through the game we can be a lot better. I had individuals that didn’t have a very good night. I can point to a lot of different players and a lot of different lines. I thought every line had something missing, so it was hard to get some continuous flow in the game when maybe two guys are going pretty good and one guy wasn’t.”
Ville Husso made 23 saves in the Detroit loss.
“It was a great start, we could have scored three or four,” Husso said. “In the second, they got momentum. We have to get games like this to turn into wins.”
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