Jack Hughes' 2nd career hat trick propelled the New Jersey Devils to a 6-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets Saturday night at Nationwide Arena.
The 22-year-old native of Orlando needed only 47 seconds for a 1-0 Devils lead, his 12th of the season to give New Jersey a dream start. They'd later make it 2-0 at the 16:21 mark from Erik Haula's 8th of the season. Moving to period 2, Kirill Marchenko got the Blue Jackets on the board with a quick goal effort of his own, needing 30 seconds less than Hughes at the start to cut the Devils lead in half. He also managed to do it on the AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER PLAY (I went to a game in Columbus recently; that's how I know lol) Not even a full minute later, however, New Jersey cushioned their lead with Tyler Toffoli's 13th of the season at 0:50 to make it 3-1 Devils. Yegor Chinakhov (8) pulled one back for Columbus at 8:38, but Hughes' 2nd of the night at 14:54 on a New Jersey PP gave the Devils a 4-2 lead heading into the final 20 minutes.
Nico Hischier (7) made it 5-2 Jersey at the 2:50 mark before Columbus tallied their final goal by Alexandre Texier (6) at 18:57. Once again, though, New Jersey would quickly respond, and as fate would have it, it was Hughes' hat goal on an empty Columbus cage at 19:12 for the final red light of the night.
The Devils improve to 16-11-1 on the season 5th in the Metro Division, with an 8-2-0 record in their last 10 games. They play next at home against struggling Anaheim (which, as of the time of this writing, is currently happening, lol) on December 17 at 8 pm. Columbus drops to 10-17-5 and remains dead last in the Metro with a 4-5-1 record in their last 10 games, with their next contest a visit to Buffalo on the 19th at 7 pm.
Team Stats:
Shots: NJ 30, CBJ 26
Hits: NJ 9, CBJ 8
Faceoff Wins: NJ 30, CBJ 21
PIM: NJ 10, CBJ 6
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