Sports

Devils’ two game win streak snapped with 5-2 loss to Senators

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Thomas Chabot and Mathieu Joseph each scored and had an assist to help the Ottawa Senators snap a three-game skid with a 5-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Saturday night.

Angus Crookshank, Ridley Greig and Drake Batherson also had goals and Brady Tkachuk had two assists for the Senators. Jonas Korpisalo stopped 18 shots for his 16th win.

Jesper Bratt and Tomas Nosek scored for the Devils, who had their two-game winning streak stopped and remain out of the wild-card playoff picture in the Eastern Conference. New Jersey had scored 17 goals in its previous five games.

Jake Allen had 20 saves for the Devils and fell to 3-2 since coming to New Jersey in a trade with Montreal.

The Senators were trailing 2-1 in the second period before getting three straight goals from Crookshank, Greig and Chabot.

“I think we kept our composure and nice move after that by Ridley and Angus gets one in and then another one, so I think we kept our composure,” Joseph said. “We stayed calm on the bench and things like that happened. We found a way to keep going and keep the lead in the third.”

Crookshank put Ottawa up 3-2 after Greig tied it two minutes earlier at 4:10 of the period. The Senators’ three goals in the second came on just seven shots on goal.

The teams combined for four goals in the first 6:02 of the second period.

Nosek and Bratt scored 36 seconds apart to put New Jersey up 2-1 just under a minute into the period, but the Devils were unable to sustain the lead.

“I thought we had a real good game, good first period,” Ottawa interim head coach Jacques Martin said. “And then the first two shifts, we gave them two turnovers that cost us, but I really liked the resiliency of our guys. And how we played after that.

“I thought we played the right way. We used the whole bench and I thought our penalty killing did a great job against their power play, so it was a real good effort.”

With Ottawa a man down, Joseph gave the Senators a 1-0 lead at 4:56 of the first period when he took an errant pass from New Jersey’s Erik Haula and fired a wrist shot from the right circle. It was the Senators’ fifth short-handed goal this season and was the 50th time in 71 games the Devils allowed the first goal.

The Devils turned the puck over 10 times.

“We didn’t play well at all,” Devils interim head coach Travis Green acknowledged. “It didn’t look like our team was ready for their speed. When you’re not making two passes in a row, it’s pretty hard to get any traction.

“We had a couple of turnovers tonight we would like to have back. But the turnovers were only part of it. Individually, we did not play up to our capabilities.”

UP NEXT

Senators: Host the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday.

Devils: Start a three-game road trip against the New York Islanders on Sunday.