Mackenzie Blackwood made 42 saves, Dougie Hamilton collected a goal and an assist, and the New Jersey Devils recorded a 4-0 victory over the New York Islanders on Thursday night in Newark, N.J.
Blackwood made his third start since returning from offseason heel surgery and withstood a barrage all night. It was the eighth time Blackwood stopped at least 40 shots, and he was awarded the first star of the game.
Janne Kuokkanen scored his first career short-handed goal and Tomas Tatar tallied on the power play as the Devils won their third straight. Dawson Mercer added a breakaway goal in the third period while Hamilton set up Tatar’s tally and scored late in the third after missing the previous three games with a lower-body injury.
Blackwood posted his seventh career shutout by stopping 16 shots in the first period, 14 in the second and 12 in the third. He started his night by stopping Mathew Barzal on a breakaway a little over a minute in.
Blackwood then stopped Kyle Palmieri on an odd-man rush about two minutes into the second and then made consecutive point-blank stops on Palmieri and Anthony Beauvillier with about six minutes left in the second. In the third, he made a blocker save on Barzal’s partial breakaway about 4 1/2 minutes in and got his 40th stop when he dove backward in the crease to stop Zach Parise’s tip-in attempt with about four minutes left.
The Islanders dropped to 5-4-2 on their team-record 13-game road trip and lost their second straight contest.
New York goaltender Ilya Sorokin started for the 10th time in 11 games and faced 34 shots, including numerous odd-man rushes.
Kuokkanen opened the scoring with 7:48 remaining in the opening period. Shortly after New York’s Brock Nelson coughed up the puck near the left corner, Kuokkanen scored by putting a rebound of Nico Hischier’s shot into the vacated left side of the net when Sorokin was slow to cover the play.
Tatar was stopped on a backhander with 62 seconds left in the second but 12 seconds later, he scored his first goal as a Devil when he deflected Hamilton’s blast from the point into the net while also trying to jump out of the way.
Shortly after Sorokin stretched his left pad to stop Tatar’s breakaway attempt, Mercer finished off a breakaway with a shot over Sorokin’s stick at 5:46 of the third.
–Field Level Media
