Tyler Toffoli scored his team-leading 22nd goal of the season as the New Jersey Devils defeated the Seattle Kraken 3-1 Monday night in Newark, N.J.
Jack Hughes and Dawson Mercer also tallied for the Devils, who improved to 2-1-1 since the All-Star break. Goaltender Nico Daws made 27 saves.
Will Borgen scored and Joey Daccord stopped 34 of 37 shots for the Kraken, who lost their third in a row overall and sixth straight on the road.
Toffoli opened the scoring with the man advantage at 13:36 of the first period after Seattle was called for having too many men on the ice. Toffoli’s slap shot from between the top of the faceoff circles glanced off the skate of Kraken forward Brandon Tanev and the right post on its way into the net.
The Devils extended their lead just 48 seconds into the second after Erik Haula stole the puck from behind Seattle’s Matty Beniers just before Beniers was about to skate the puck out of the defensive zone. Haula fed Hughes deep in the left-wing corner, and he banked a shot off the side of Daccord’s mask from just below the goal line.
Mercer made it 3-0 at 4:54 of the period, lifting a rebound over Daccord while being surrounded by three Seattle players after the goalie made a sprawling stop on Timo Meier.
Daws stopped a breakaway by Seattle’s Yanni Gourde with about 5 1/2 minutes left in the second and got a little help late in the period when he managed to get a piece of a slap shot by Vince Dunn. The puck slipped through Daws’ pads, went off the left post and was trickling toward the goal line when Devils forward Tomas Nosek slid the puck under the goalie’s pads to get a stoppage.
Daws’ bid for his first NHL shutout ended at the 10-minute mark of the third on Borgen’s wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle.
Kraken defenseman Brian Dumoulin suffered a lower-body injury on a check by Meier late in the first period and didn’t return.
–Field Level Media
