Jesper Bratt scored one goal and assisted another while goaltender Jake Allen posted his second shutout of the season as the visiting New Jersey Devils defeated the Edmonton Oilers 3-0 on Monday.
Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils, who have won three of four games. Allen made 31 saves to earn his 26th career shutout.
Calvin Pickard stopped 13 shots for the Oilers, who saw their two-game winning streak snapped.
Despite the Oilers holding the momentum from the drop of the puck, Noesen opened the scoring at 5:18 of the clash. Not long after Allen made a sprawling save, the Devils took the play to the other end and put themselves on the board when Noesen was fed a puck in the slot and found the mark for his sixth goal of the season.
Bratt doubled the New Jersey lead at 16:34 of the second period. With Noesen in front of the net setting the screen, Bratt fired a shot from the slot for the power-play goal, his third tally of the season. The Oilers have the league’s worst penalty kill (61.8 percent entering Monday).
Meier made it a three-goal edge midway through the third period with his sixth goal of the campaign. Dawson Mercer stole the puck in his own zone and flipped a home-run pass that Meier gloved down to his own stick at full speed before slipping it into the net on a back-hand deke.
From there, the Devils clamped down the best they could to preserve Allen’s blanking of the hosts. It’s the third consecutive game Devils game that has ended with a shutout, two of them victories.
Allen was full marks for the shutout, having delivered a handful of highlight-reel stops. Allen set the tone with a fantastic stop on Adam Henrique in the first period and made another clutch stop on a Derek Ryan one-timer attempt in the second period.
–Field Level Media
