Hughes waits until the last three minutes
Two minutes and twelve seconds were left when Jack Hughes stopped waiting. He sauntered down to the goal line, squeezed a shot through Dylan Garand, and handed the New Jersey Devils a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers in their preseason opener.
The Rangers pulled Garand with 1:22 on the clock. They did not register a single shot on goal while skating 6-on-5. That was the night in miniature: New York hung around, twice pulled level, then ran out of road.
New Jersey move to 2-0-0 in this preseason. The scoreline flatters neither side much, but the Devils have now found ways to win two exhibition games in a week, which is more than most teams can say at this point of September.
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Garand keeps it close, then the Devils find a way
For twenty minutes the Rangers had no business being level. New Jersey outshot them 10-3 in the opening period and got nothing for it. Garand, 24, turned away the first 16 shots he faced, including an acrobatic poke check on Stefan Noesen and a paddle-down rush save on Timo Meier.
The breakthrough came on New Jersey’s 17th shot. Nico Hischier flicked a puck toward the net at 11:55 of the second, it clipped Urho Vaakanainen’s elbow and trickled behind Garand. Anton Blidh answered at 16:05, taking a feed from Liam Greentree and beating Nico Daws glove side. Then Vincent Iorio coughed the puck up behind his own net at 19:10 and Meier buried the wraparound.
Drew Fortescue, a rookie defenceman, tied it again at 7:07 of the third with a wrister into the top right corner. Jesper Boqvist should have restored the lead moments later on a short-handed breakaway, but rang the post. Garand finished with 28 saves on 31 shots and was named third star. Daws stopped 13 of 15 over the final 40 minutes to take the win.
Sykora leaves early, Rangers head home
The Rangers lost Adam Sykora at 9:14 of the first period. Devils defenceman Mikael Diotte put the rookie into the corner boards, Sykora came up favouring his leg and was helped down the tunnel after 2:49 of ice time. Mike Sullivan said afterwards that Sykora and Iorio were both being evaluated for lower-body injuries.
New York host the New York Islanders at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday for their home preseason debut.
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