Devils Take Down Champs | GAME HISTORY

Here are some observations from the game:

• What a masterful pass by Jesper Bratt to set up Jack Hughes’ first period goal. Bratt had the puck near the far blue line and was facing away from the goal. He lifted a backhand pass into the air and all the way to the bottom of the near circle and right on the tape of Hughes, who quickly shot the puck into the goal.

• Hughes’ goal in the first period was 300^th NHL points in his career. He became the fastest player in franchise history (Colorado/New Jersey) to reach 300 points in 325 games, passing Kirk Muller (332).

Hughes also became just the fifth American-born player to reach 300 points before the age of 24^th birthday, along with Patrick Kane, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel and Matthew Tkachuk).

• Meier picked up his seventh goal of the season late in the second period with a nasty shot between the circles. He was on a breakaway, but Florida linebacker Nate Schmidt was closing in. So he just took the puck and ripped it far into the net. Simple sniper shot. Nothing fancy, but never so affective.

• Jonas Siegenthaler picked up a secondary assist on Meier’s goal in the second period, and it was a critical assist. The Panthers skated through the neutral zone when Tkachuk tried to knock a pass off the boards to Evan Rodrigues, which would have created a 2-on-1 for Florida. But Siegenthaler knocked the puck out of the air and eventually Dawson Mercer found Meier for his breakaway goal.

• Ondrej Palat made a game-saving backcheck late in the third period when Eetu Luostarinen pulled the puck around Markstrom and had an open net. Palat reached from behind to bind Luostarinen’s cane and he didn’t even get a shot.

• The Devils penalty kill unit had successfully killed 18 straight penalties entering the game. And the device was really tested late in the first period. Stefan Noesen received a slashing penalty. But 55 seconds later, Brenden Dillon was penalized for removing Matthew Tkachuk’s helmet. It put the Devils down two men for 65 seconds in the final minutes of the period.

The Devils managed to kill both penalties to extend their streak to 20 for 20. And they owe their goalie a big thank you. Jacob Markstrom made a clean save on Carter Verhaeghe, then denied a shot from Tkachuk’s high slot by getting part of his stick on the shot.

Unfortunately, the streak would end there as Reinhart tipped in a shot on the man advantage the following period.

• The game also featured one of the best matchups you’ll see all season between Dillon and Florida’s Jonah Gadjovich. The two men threw punch-after-punch non-stop for 25 seconds straight.

“We have a lot of respect for him for doing that,” Cotter said.