It’s a wrap as Devils top Penguins in OT

DEVILS 2 PENGUINS 1

PITTSBURGH — Jesper Bratt scored on a wraparound at 2:50 of overtime and the Devils beat the Penguins, 2-1, on Sunday.

Bratt took a pass from Pavel Zacha and quickly circled the net, tucking a shot between the post and the skate of Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry for his first career overtime game-winner.

“(Jarry) was kind of covering everything for me to shoot at, and I didn’t want to force a bad-angle shot, so I just tried to wrap it,” Bratt said. “I saw he kind of got caught with one of his legs that he couldn’t push through to the other side and I saw my chance to wrap around quick.”

The Devils won for the third time in four games. They won for the second time in three games against Pittsburgh since Sunday’s game was the third consecutive meeting between the teams.

Bratt scored his second of the season and continued a four-game point streak, while Sami Vatanen also scored his second of the season for the Devils. Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 35 shots for the Devils. He played his first game since aggravating an upper-body injury during warmups on

Thursday.

“Mackenzie came up huge for us and had some big saves,” Bratt said. “I think we played harder as a group. We wanted to compete and we wanted to win.” Sidney Crosby scored his 12th of the season for Pittsburgh. The Penguins lost for the third time in four games, following a six-game win streak. Jarry stopped 33 shots for Pittsburgh.

“We generated some decent changes, but we couldn’t capitalize,” Crosby said. “It was a close game and in overtime anything can happen. We had our looks and we didn’t put them in.”

Crosby opened the scoring at 3:37 of the first period. He was near the goal line when he took a cross-ice pass from Jake Guentzel and snuck a shot between Blackwood’s outstretched skate and the post.

“It was disappointing to have that first goal go in, but I thought our response was really good,” Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. “We stuck with it and we got rewarded by the end of the game.”

Vatanen tied the game at 4:48 of the second period. The Devils swarmed the Pittsburgh net following a power play and Vatanen converted when his slap shot beat Jarry to the glove side.