Blackwood stops 42 shots, Devils beat Islanders
NEWARK, N.J. — Mackenzie Blackwood made a season-high 42 saves for his seventh career shutout, and the New Jersey Devils beat the New York Islanders 4-0 on Thursday night.
Janne Kuokkanen scored a short-handed goal, Tomas Tatar had a power-play goal and Dawson Mercer and Dougie Hamilton each had one at even strength to help New Jersey win its third straight and improve to 4-1-2 in the last seven games.
Ilya Sorokin had 30 saves for the Islanders, who lost their second straight in regulation after a 5-0-2 stretch.
Blackwood, making his third start of the season, made 16 saves in the first period, 14 in the second and 12 in the third for his first shutout since March 28 at Boston. He beat the Islanders for the third time in eight career starts against them.
Sorokin had a stellar save early in the third, doing the splits on an attempt by Tatar, to keep the Islanders within two.
However, Mercer pushed New Jersey’s lead to 3-0 on a 2-on-1 rush as he got a pass from Andreas Johnsson between the circles, went forehand-backhand and lifted the puck over Sorokin for his fourth of the season at 5:46.
Hamilton, back after missing three games with a lowerbody injury, fired a slap shot from the top of the right circle to make it 4-0 with 3:27 left. It was his third.
With the Devils leading 1-0 after 20 minutes, Casey Cizikas fired a one-timer from the right side that Blackwood caught in his chest with 7:18 remaining in
the second to keep the Islanders off the scoreboard.
Tatar made it 2-0 on the power play as he deflected Hamilton’s shot from the point past Sorokin for his first with 50 seconds to go.
Blackwood made a nice stick save on Mathew Barzal just 11 / 2minutes into the game. Sorokin slid to his left to deny Alexander Holtz nearly three minutes later, and had a right pad save on Mercer with 81⁄2minutes left in the period.
New Jersey got on the scoreboard first. With New York on a power play, the puck came out of the corner and squirted out in front. P.K. Subban fired a shot that was stopped by Sorokin, who also denied Nico Hischier’s follow from the left side. However, the rebound went to the goalie’s left and Kuokkanen quickly put it into an open net for his third with 7:48 left.
New York had a chance to tie it, but Blackwood gloved Oliver Wahlstrom’s shot from the right faceoff dot with just under six minutes left in the first.
OILERS 5, BRUINS 3
BOSTON — Leon Draisaitl had two goals and an assist, moving ahead of teammate Connor McDavid into the NHL scoring lead and leading the Edmonton Oilers to a victory over the Boston Bruins.
Evan Bouchard, Zach Hyman and Cody Ceci also scored and Mikko Koskinen stopped 26 shots for Edmonton, which avoided its first back-to-back losses of the season. McDavid had one assist to extend his scoring streak to 12 games to start the season.
After entering the game tied for the NHL lead with 23 points, McDavid fell behind Draisaitl (12 goals, 14 assists). David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand each scored a goal for Boston that was answered less than a minute later by an Edmonton score. Brandon Carlo gave the Bruins their third lead late in the second period and then in the third turned the puck over to Draisaitl right in front of the net to make it 3-all.