NEWARK, N.J. _ The Devils were nearly undone by the details Tuesday night at Prudential Center. They faced a must-win situation against the Carolina Hurricanes and overcame their own mistakes to win, 4-3.
Stefan Noesen scored the game-winner with just 1:33 left to play, Kyle Palmieri scored twice on the power play and assisted on Pavel Zacha's first-period goal. Taylor Hall assisted on both goals and Keith Kinkade made 30 saves.
The Devils now have 88 points and created some separation between themselves and the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference wild-card race. The Panthers are three points behind with two games in hand.
With the game tied at 2 in the third, Carolina's Noah Hanifin found himself alone in the crease with the Devils bunched up and unaware of where they were in front of him. He had a tight window and effectively threaded the needle just 3:39 into the period to give the Canes a 3-2 lead.
But the Devils didn't back down. Palmieri redirected Hall's shot into the net at 11:05 to tie the game at 3-all.
The Devils came out of the gate energized and it showed when they took a quick 1-0 lead 5:47 into play. Zacha caught a rebound off a shot by Palmieri and swiped it home so quickly that Carolina goalie Scott Darling barely saw it.
Sami Vatanen chipped the puck over the glass on an errant clearing attempt at the 7:00 mark and sat for a two-minute delay of game penalty. The Devils had a strong kill, keeping the puck in their own zone for most of the two minutes and Blake Coleman nearly made it 2-0 with a short-handed goal.
But after that, they lapsed. The play got sloppy and they failed to hang on to the puck, getting outshot 13-7 over the final 13 minutes and allowing two goals to end the period down 2-1.
The sloppy play was carried over into the second period but another big penalty kill and a monster shift by the top line brought them back to life. The top line hammered away at Darling throwing five shots on net during a long shift just past the midway point of the period. Palmieri drew a holding penalty at 13:22 sending Phil Di Giuseppe to the box.
Palmieri himself capitalized less than a minute later, finishing off a crossing feed from Hall to make it 2-2.
Hall's two assists gave him 51 on the season, two shy of his career high. With a secondary assist on Palmieri's first goal, Will Butcher tallied his 35th of the season to surpass Eric Weinrich and Slava Fetisov for the most by a Devils rookie defenseman.
