Erik Haula and Nathan Bastian scored in the first period and the New Jersey Devils easily extended their winning streak to 12 games with a 5-1 victory over the host Ottawa Senators on Saturday afternoon.
Unbeaten since Oct. 24, the Devils are one away from matching the longest winning streak in franchise history. New Jersey’s longest streak occurred Feb. 26 to March 23, 2001, and the Devils can match that mark by beating Edmonton on Monday at home.
The Devils also won for the 15th time in 16 games and became the first team to win 12 straight since the Florida Panthers won 13 in a row March 29 to April 23, 2022.
Jesper Boqvist and Yegor Sharangovich scored in the second and Michael McLeod added an empty-netter for New Jersey, which beat Ottawa for the second time in the streak and improved to 9-0-0 in November and 8-0-0 against Canadian teams. New Jersey also swept a road trip through Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa for the first time and won its eighth straight road game.
Sharangovich and McLeod added assists while Nico Hischier collected an assist after briefly being shaken up in the opening period.
New Jersey goalie Akira Schmid made 25 saves, including four on Ottawa captain Brady Tkachuk.
Derick Brassard scored but Ottawa dropped to 2-8-1 in its past 11. Anton Forsberg allowed three goals on 18 shots and Cam Talbot made 16 saves.
On a power play, Haula put the Devils ahead with 12:50 remaining in the first when he got the puck above the left circle and one-timed a centering pass from Fabian Zetterlund past Forsberg.
Bastian made it 2-0 nearly nine minutes later by crashing the net, getting past Ottawa defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker and backhanding a rebound of a Miles Wood shot by Forsberg.
Following an errant clearing attempt deep in the defensive zone by Travis Hamonic, Boqvist slipped past Jake Sanderson and swept in the rebound off a Sharangovich shot.
Brassard lifted a shot from below the left circle over Schmid’s stick to get within 3-1, but Sharangovich then swept in a short-handed rebound in the final minute of the second period to make it 4-1.
–Field Level Media
