Devils vs. Red Wings: Jack Hughes Ends a Seesaw Night With an Overtime Breakaway Winner

Jack Hughes spent most of Tuesday night firing pucks at John Gibson and getting nothing but assists for his trouble. Then Lucas Raymond coughed up the puck in overtime, Jesper Bratt threaded a pass up the middle, and Hughes was gone.

Hughes beat Gibson to the blocker side on a breakaway 1:19 into overtime, and the New Jersey Devils survived a back-and-forth night at Little Caesars Arena to beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-4. Hughes finished with a goal and two assists, Bratt matched him with a goal and two helpers, and the Devils bounced back from a 4-1 home loss to Ottawa the night before.

Sixteen Shots, One Goal

New Jersey came out like it had something to prove. Per the AP, the Devils outshot Detroit 16-0 by the midpoint of the first period, and Red Wings coach Todd McLellan did not sugarcoat it afterward.

"We didn't skate at all in the first period," McLellan said. "We were standing still and trying to play the game, which you can't do against that team."

All that pressure produced exactly one goal. At 6:07, Stefan Noesen blocked a Justin Faulk clearing attempt and found Evan Rodrigues alone in the slot, and Rodrigues snapped in his first goal as a Devil.

Then Detroit's best line woke up and flipped the script. Emmitt Finnie flew down the left wing and beat Jake Allen over the right shoulder from the face-off dot at 18:35, on what the AP counted as Detroit's third shot of the game. Defenseman Anton Johansson picked up the secondary assist, the first point of his NHL career. Just 1:43 into the second, Finnie slid a cross-ice pass on a 2-on-1 and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard finished it. NHL.com noted the Red Wings led 2-1 while being outshot 18-4. Hockey is a beautiful, unfair sport.

The Middle Period Turned Into a Tennis Rally

The rest of the second was a volley at the net. Anthony Mantha, a former Red Wing, tied it 2-2 at 7:03 by burying a cross-ice feed from Dawson Mercer for his first goal with New Jersey. When Keegan Kolesar went off for hooking, Nico Hischier tipped home a Bratt and Hughes setup on the power play at 10:16 for a 3-2 lead. Per NHL.com, it was the 202nd goal of Hischier's career, tying Bobby Holik and Travis Zajac for third most in Devils history.

Detroit's equalizer came with a side of chaos. Allen lost his stick, and although the Devils cleared the zone, nobody got it back to him. On Detroit's next trip in, Alex DeBrincat scored through traffic at 15:10. Bratt restored the lead at 16:52 with Jonas Siegenthaler and Hughes assisting, and it was 4-3 after 40 minutes.

DeBrincat had one more answer. At 5:46 of the third, Moritz Seider and Ben Chiarot moved the puck around to him in the left circle, and he hammered a one-timer to make it 4-4.

Turning Point: One Big Save, Then One Bad Pass

Detroit earned its point late in regulation. Per the AP, Gibson flashed a kick save to deny Arseny Gritsyuk on an odd-man rush, and the game went to overtime tied.

Overtime lasted 1:19. Raymond's turnover gave New Jersey the puck, Bratt sent it up the middle, and Hughes was in alone on Gibson. He went blocker side, and that was that.

"Jack was really feeling it tonight," Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said. "He had 18 shot attempts, so it was fitting that he got our last shot."

Hughes, Bratt and a Detroit Line Worth Watching

Hughes logged 23:31 and was the most dangerous player on the ice all night. According to NHL.com, both of his goals this season have come in overtime, the first at 3:23 against Philadelphia in the season opener. Call him the closer.

"This was a good game and a good win for us," Hughes said. "We need to keep building on this."

Bratt had a hand in three of the five goals and played 20:16. The newly assembled line of Rodrigues, Mantha and Noesen delivered too: Rodrigues and Mantha each had a goal and an assist, and Noesen added an assist and five hits in 11:44.

"We got a couple simple goals," Rodrigues said of the new trio.

For Detroit, the takeaway is a line with real teeth. DeBrincat had two goals and an assist, while Finnie and Brandsegg-Nygard each had a goal and an assist, and all three finished plus-4. NHL.com noted the trio accounted for 14 of the 21 shots from Detroit's forwards.

"They were hands down, by a country mile, our best line tonight," McLellan said.

Keefe agreed, in his own way. "We didn't defend them well, and if you make it easy for those three, they will make you pay," he said.

In net, Gibson made 32 saves on 37 shots and kept Detroit alive through the early barrage. Allen stopped 23 of 27 at the other end.

Stats That Matter

• 37-27: Shots on goal, New Jersey vs. Detroit.
• 18: Hughes' shot attempts, per Keefe. The 18th was the one that counted.
• 14 of 21: Shots from Detroit forwards that came off the DeBrincat line.
• 1-for-1: New Jersey's power play. The only man advantage it got, it cashed.
• 25-13: Hits, Detroit vs. New Jersey.

What It Means

The Devils climb back to .500 at 3-3-0 with six points and picked up their first road win, moving to 1-1-0 away from Newark. That matters for a team that, per the AP, finished seventh in its division last season and spent the summer adding pieces like Rodrigues and Mantha to change that. The Rangers visit Thursday.

Detroit drops to 1-3-2 with four points and 1-3-1 at home. The Red Wings have now lost three straight, though they at least banked a point in each of the last two, after a 1-0 shootout loss in Montreal on Saturday and this one. Philadelphia is in town Thursday.

The Closer Wears 86

Detroit has a line that can trade chances with anyone, and it nearly stole two points from a game where it was outshot by double digits. But the Devils have a player who keeps showing up when the clock goes to three-on-three, and that is a cheat code no amount of forechecking can fix.

As Mantha put it after scoring his first goal of the season against his old team: "I got the first one done, and now I can move on." The Devils would like Hughes to keep doing the same in overtime.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press and NHL.com; postgame quotes as reported by NHL.com.