NEWARK, N.J. — As difficult as their start to the season had been, the Rangers had a chance to climb into second place in the Metropolitan Division Saturday afternoon, if they’d somehow be able to beat their Hudson River rivals, the Devils.
But Damon Severson’s goal with 2:13 left in overtime gave the Devils a 4-3 victory at Prudential Center, to keep the New Jersey squad ahead of their city rivals, and put them two points ahead in the standings.
The win lifted the Devils 25-12-3 to 53 points, while the Rangers (22-12-7) are at 51.
Jack Hughes had two goals for the Devils, who burst out of the gate early at the start of the season, have tailed off since, and actually entered Saturday winless in their last eight home games (0-7-1). Their last home win had been Dec. 6 against Chicago.
They trailed 3-1 when the third period began, but they rallied to force a tie on a power-play goal by Jesper Bratt and the second goal by Hughes, who collected the ricochet of a blocked shot and scored his 26th of the season at 10:32 to force the overtime.
Jimmy Vesey opened the scoring for the Rangers at 1:24 of the first period, taking a one-touch pass from Alexis Lafrenière and cutting across the slot and firing a wrist shot past the blocker pad of Devils goalie Vitek Vanecek. It was Vesey’s seventh goal of the season and his first since signing a two-year contract extension on Wednesday.
But the Devils pressed for an equalizer the rest of the period and ended up outshooting the Rangers, 19-9. They had a golden chance to tie the score when they had a five-on-three power play for 1:33 late in the period, but Igor Shesterkin, the Rangers’ All-Star Game representative, kept them off the board, making a number of difficult saves to preserve the Rangers’ lead heading into the first intermission.
Julien Gauthier made it 2-0 at 3:28 of the second, taking a nifty drop pass from Adam Fox and driving to the net then going forehand-backhand-forehand to tuck a shot around Vanecek for his sixth goal of the season.
Hughes finally got the Devils on the board when he picked off a pass from Barclay Goodrow in the neutral zone, sped past Ben Harpur, and lifted a shot over Shesterkin at 9:24 of the second for his 25th goal of the season.
Chris Kreider’s 19th goal, at 13:15 of the second, restored the two-goal lead. It came at the end of a dominant shift by the Rangers’ top line, in which Kaapo Kakko weaved his way through the offensive zone before passing to Mika Zibanejad in the left corner. Zibanejad fed a driving K’Andre Miller for a shot that Vanecek saved, but Miller managed to whack the rebound over to Kreider at the back post and he put it in.
