{"id":242578,"date":"2025-10-22T03:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/242578\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T03:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T03:37:08","slug":"jack-hughes-hat-trick-keys-new-jersey-devils-5-2-win-over-toronto-maple-leafs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/242578\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Hughes\u2019 Hat Trick Keys New Jersey Devils\u2019 5-2 Win Over Toronto Maple Leafs"},"content":{"rendered":"

After being held without a goal through the first three games of the season, Jack Hughes is officially on a tear. He scored his first of the year in the home opener against the Florida Panthers<\/a>, twice on Saturday against the Edmonton Oilers<\/a>, and he followed that up with a hat trick tonight, as the New Jersey Devils beat the Maple Leafs, 5-2, up in Toronto. The Devils have now won five games in a row, their longest streak in almost three years.<\/p>\n

This was a game that New Jersey controlled all night long. It was refreshing to see after the team had made a habit of getting out to slow starts this season. Prior to tonight, only the Lightning game in the opening week of the season stands out to me as one in which the Devils came out of the gates well. Even in their last game, a big win over the Oilers, New Jersey didn\u2019t register a shot on goal until about 10 minutes into the contest. But tonight was different, as the Devils jumped on the Maple Leafs and seemed to get stronger as each of the 60 minutes ticked off the clock.<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t know it by looking at the scoreboard after the first period, though. That\u2019s because New Jersey native Anthony Stolarz was putting on a goaltending clinic. Keep in mind, this was the same Anthony Stolarz who robbed the Devils of a win last season at The Rock, stopping 38 of 39 shots to lead the Maple Leafs to a 2-1 overtime victory on December 10th. And through 20 minutes, he was doing it again. New Jersey was thoroughly controlling play, but Stolarz\u2019 magic and a John Tavares goal that he batted out of the air and into the net conspired to put the Devils down 1-0 entering the second period.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when Jack Hughes and the Devils went to work.<\/p>\n

Hughes and Jesper Bratt were absolutely flying tonight. They started their high wire act in the first period, but didn\u2019t have any goals to show for it. The breakthrough came in the middle frame, as Hughes wired a wrister from the slot past Stolarz and in to tie the game. The marker came off a sweet feed from Bratt, and the Devils caught a break when Toronto head coach Craig Berube decided to challenge for goaltender interference. This was, quite simply, a bad challenge, as while Ondrej Palat was battling in front with Chris Tanev, Palat very clearly did not interfere with Stolarz. This unsuccessful challenge sent New Jersey to the power play, where they scored again. In the dying seconds of the man advantage, Timo Meier whipped a one-timer toward the net that was going wide. But it banked off a skate in front and right to Cody Glass, who buried the loose puck to give the Devils their first lead of the night.<\/p>\n

The Devils were rolling, and they wouldn\u2019t stop there. A few minutes later, Brenden Dillon took a nice pass from Luke Glendening and rifled a shot past Stolarz to finish off a 4-on-1 rush and extend New Jersey\u2019s lead to 3-1. Please note, none of what you just read was a typo. That really happened, with that exact combination of players, under those circumstances. Really.<\/p>\n

After Toronto got a goal back to cut New Jersey\u2019s lead to 3-2, Simon Nemec (more on him later) made a nice play to force a turnover off the rush. Bratt scooped up the loose puck and made a killer stretch pass to Jack Hughes, who had a step on the Leafs defense and skated down the left wing on Stolarz. For the first time in what seems like generations, Hughes wound up and ripped a slap shot that beat Stolarz near-side, restoring the Devils\u2019 two-goal lead.<\/p>\n

When Brenden Dillon is finishing off 4-on-1\u2019s and Jack Hughes is unleashing clappers, you know it\u2019s your night.<\/p>\n

And with that, the Devils took a 4-2 edge into the third period. The final frame was pretty uneventful, as New Jersey did a pretty good job of keeping their collective boot on the neck of the Maple Leafs, not allowing them any room to make a comeback. Then in the final minutes of the game, with the Toronto net empty, Bratt collected a puck in the neutral zone and made a pass across the ice to Hughes, who shot a puck that was partially deflected into the yawning cage to complete the hat trick, Hughes\u2019 third of his career. The game would end on that 5-2 final score.<\/p>\n

This was a great night for the Devils. Hughes was obviously the superstar, but just about every other player on the team contributed in some way. Hughes had the hat trick, Bratt assisted on all three of those goals, and eight other Devils collected points this evening. All while playing really good team defense and absolutely locking the game down in the third period.<\/p>\n

The New Jersey Devils have won five straight games, and are officially rolling.<\/p>\n

The Game Highlights: Courtesy of NHL.com<\/a><\/p>\n

While Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and the skaters put together a fantastic team effort, Jake Allen once again gave his team a quality start. Allen stopped 23 of 25 shots, good for a .920 sv%. According to Natural Stat Trick, he saved 1.07 Goals Above Expected. And he saved the best for last, absolutely robbing Morgan Rielly in the final minutes of the game<\/a>. Keep in mind, that save came before Hughes\u2019 empty-netter sealed it, so a goal there would have made the score 4-3 with enough time for the Maple Leafs to push for the tying goal. It was an absolutely monstrous save.<\/p>\n

With Jacob Markstrom injured, Allen has been forced to take on a larger role than we all thought he would have at this point. But thus far, he has absolutely exceeded expectations. Things can change quickly in this league, especially with goaltenders, but between Allen\u2019s terrific 2024-25 season and now his fantastic start to this campaign, it might be time to start taking about Allen as one of the higher-end goaltenders in the league.<\/p>\n

Putting The \u201cSpecial\u201d In Special Teams<\/p>\n

The Devils continued to excel on special teams tonight. New Jersey\u2019s penalty kill entered this contest having successfully killed off 16 straight man disadvantages. Well make it 18 in a row, as they killed both of Toronto\u2019s power plays this evening. In fact, New Jersey was the team that almost scored during the first chance, as not only did the Leafs not register a shot on goal, but Nico Hischier almost buried one himself on a shorthanded 2-on-1. The only reason the Devils didn\u2019t tally yet another shorthanded goal was because Stolarz made an incredible save. He gave up four goals tonight, but Stolarz had one of the best four-goals-against games I\u2019ve seen in a while.<\/p>\n

As for the power play, that unit went 1-for-2 tonight, with Glass\u2019 marker in the second period proving to be crucial. Keefe continues to rotate his power play units, opting for Hamilton and Mercer in this game to go along with the staple forwards of Hughes, Hischier, and Bratt. It was his second unit that got on the board tonight though.<\/p>\n

New Jersey relied on elite special teams to make it to the postseason a year ago, and early on in 2025-26, the Devils are proving that those units can be relied on again. The power play and penalty kill continue to be gamebreakers for New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Early in the first period, Ondrej Palat left the bench, leaving Hughes and Bratt to skate mostly with Paul Cotter until the opening frame ended. Palat did return at the beginning of the second and managed to finish the game, so he appears no worse for wear, which is nice to see.<\/p>\n

At the time of this writing, I have not seen any indication why Palat left. I (and the MSG broadcast) only speculate that it was injury related. Maybe it was an equipment issue, who knows. Assuming it was some sort of health-related absence, it was nice to see him return. As much as a lot of us get on Palat, this team really cannot afford many more injuries.<\/p>\n

I thought Simon Nemec had a really bad game tonight. He did some noticeably good things, including creating the turnover that directly led to Hughes\u2019 slap shot goal. He was also on the ice for the 4-on-1 that the Devils generated in the second period that resulted in Dillon\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

But he was also the main character in the opening marker tonight, first icing the puck, then failing to box out Tavares in front, letting him bat the puck in to give the Maple Leafs an early lead. He was also the primary reason why Toronto scored their other goal tonight, stepping up on Tavares at the Devils\u2019 blue line and failing to disrupt the play. This led to an odd-man rush and a tap-in goal for Matias Maccelli. According to Natural Stat Trick, Nemec posted a subterranean 5-on-5 Expected Goals For% of 15.59%. Per Hockey Stat Cards<\/a>, Nemec was the worst Devil by GameScore this evening. My own personal eye test and multiple analytics models agree: Nemec was awful tonight.<\/p>\n

At this point, I think Nemec has not forced head coach Sheldon Keefe to keep him in the lineup once Johnny Kovacevic returns. All the small sample size caveats apply, but while I do think Nemec has had his moments and has had a couple good games, he\u2019s also struggled a little more than I would have liked on the young season. He\u2019s getting mostly cushy deployment on the third pair with Brenden Dillon, and he\u2019s still losing his minutes more than you\u2019d want to see.<\/p>\n

Again, it\u2019s early and I still believe in Nemec long term. Heck, I believe in him short term too, as I think he is more than capable of rattling off a bunch of great games in a row. But at least through six games this season, Nemec has clearly been the sixth-best defenseman on the team in my opinion. And tonight was his worst game yet.<\/p>\n

Keefe Finally Gets His Revenge<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s end on a positive. Congrats to Sheldon Keefe for his first win over his new team. New Jersey lost all three games to Toronto last season, and they\u2019ve struggled mightily against them in general in recent years, losing 14 of the last 17 meetings between the clubs.<\/p>\n

But the win tonight finally gets the monkey off Keefe\u2019s back. I have no idea if Keefe holds a lot of reverence or a lot of disdain for the Maple Leafs organization, or something in between. I\u2019m not in the man\u2019s head. But I do feel pretty safe in assuming that he really wanted to beat his old employer tonight after going 0-for-3 in 2024-25. Kudos to Keefe for that feather in his cap.<\/p>\n

Tonight was the beginning of New Jersey\u2019s first back-to-back this season. The Devils will return to The Rock to host the Minnesota Wild tomorrow night. Puck drop is slated for 7:00pm.<\/p>\n

What did you make of tonight\u2019s game? Aside from Jack Hughes, who impressed you the most? Do you agree that this was Nemec\u2019s worst game of the season? Are you concerned at all with him? How encouraged are you by Allen\u2019s start to the season? As always, thanks for reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being held without a goal through the first three games of the season, Jack Hughes is officially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[108926,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-242578","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-devils-game-recaps","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}