Devils Rally From Down One to Bury LA 3-1

New Jersey scored three unanswered goals after falling behind to take a 3-1 final over Los Angeles on October 24. Arseny Gritsyuk was the story of the night, finishing with a goal and an assist to pace the Devils' comeback.

The first two periods were a stalemate until Scott Laughton broke the deadlock at 15:57 of the second, wiring a wrist shot past Jake Allen with help from Adrian Kempe and Andre Lee to put LA up 1-0. That goal shifted the score margin from even to minus-one for New Jersey — the turning point of the game, as it turned out, because it woke the Devils up rather than buried them. Just 166 seconds later, at 18:43 of the same period, Anthony Mantha answered with a wrist shot of his own, assisted by Jesper Boqvist and Evan Rodrigues, and just like that the teams headed to the third tied at one.

The third period belonged entirely to New Jersey. Brett Pesce — on his first goal of the season — put the Devils ahead for good at 8:08, converting a wrist shot set up by Luke Evangelista and Arseny Gritsyuk. Then, with the game nearly sealed and just five seconds remaining on the clock, Gritsyuk buried his sixth of the year on a wrist shot, with Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt collecting the assists, to make it 3-1 final. Hughes now has nine assists on the season; Bratt has eight. Those are numbers that look like a pair of players operating at a high level early in the year.

In net, Anton Forsberg was not the problem for LA — he stopped 23 of 25 shots, a workload that appears to reflect how thoroughly New Jersey controlled the offensive zone in the third. Jake Allen, meanwhile, was barely tested, turning aside 12 of 13 shots for the win. The Devils generated just enough to win and didn't need to generate much more. For Los Angeles, the inability to add to that Laughton goal — the only lead they held all night — looks like the real issue. One goal on 13 shots is a thin margin for error, and New Jersey had none of the errors required to let LA back in.