Playoff-Hungry Devils Outlast Thrashers

The New Jersey Devils continued their push for the playoffs by defeating the Atlanta Thrashers 4—2 Tuesday night.
Playoff-Hungry Devils Outlast Thrashers
3/15/2011
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/1devilsWeb.jpg" alt="LIGHTING IT UP: After a sluggish start, the New Jersey Devils roared back to defeat the Atlanta Thrashers Tuesday night at the Prudential Center. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)" title="LIGHTING IT UP: After a sluggish start, the New Jersey Devils roared back to defeat the Atlanta Thrashers Tuesday night at the Prudential Center. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)" width="580" class="size-medium wp-image-1806720"/></a>
LIGHTING IT UP: After a sluggish start, the New Jersey Devils roared back to defeat the Atlanta Thrashers Tuesday night at the Prudential Center. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

The New Jersey Devils (33–32–4) continued their push for the playoffs by defeating the Atlanta Thrashers (29–29–12) Tuesday night 4–2 at the Prudential Center.

Speaking with MSG, Devils coach Jacques Lemaire commented on his team’s ability to bounce back, saying, “We had a great second period and from that point we played better and game back and won the game.”

Rookie center Jacob Josefson, who scored a critical goal in the third period, added, “We’re a strong team, so I hope we can continue this.”

Devils goalie Martin Brodeur, who saved 18 of 20 shots on goal, seems to have found the Fountain of Youth late in the season and looked incredibly sharp.
Action Packed

The first period saw plenty of action as Atlanta scored the first goal of the game at 15:24. On the play, Thrashers’ winger Evander Kane skated down the left side the length of the ice and dropped a no-look pass to teammate Tim Stapleton who tapped the puck passed a sprawling Brodeur.

Less than a minute later, winger Chris Thornburn scored again for Atlanta as he skated in front of the Devils net and put a quick shot past Brodeur at 16:29.

New Jersey finally got on the board at 18:52 as center Travis Zajac made it a one-goal game taking a redirected a shot by defenseman Mark Fain and slapping it home past Thrashers goalie Ondrej Pavelec.

The Devils came out in the second period putting plenty of pressure on Atlanta—their persistence paid off at 5:10 as New Jersey broke out in a 3-on-2 that resulted in Patrik Elias ripping a shot past Pavelec that tied up the game.

New Jersey pulled ahead at 4:14 in the third period on the stick of rookie center Jacob Josefson who rifled a shot from the left side, scoring his second goal of the season and giving his team a 3–2 lead.

After several minutes of outstanding goaltending by Brodeur, New Jersey sealed the win an empty-netter by Ilya Kovalchuk at 19:43 to the delight of the roaring home crowd.

At 70 points, the 10th placed Devils are now six points away from the eighth and final seed currently held by the Buffalo Sabres (76 points) who lost 1–0 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night.

The cross-town rival and seventh seeded New York Rangers (78 points) were also in action and defeated the New York Islanders 6–3 at Madison Square Garden.