COLUMBUS Philadelphia Flyers T-Shirts Womens , Ohio (AP) — In the third period, the game between the New Jersey Devils and the Columbus Blue Jackets came down to goaltenders — one making his first NHL start and the other a Vezina Trophy-winning veteran.It was fun to watch. Both performed admirably, even spectacularly, in a scoreless final period, enabling the Blue Jackets to hang on to a 2-1 lead and beat the Devils on Thursday night.Sergei Bobrovsky, the Columbus netminder, covered the just outside the goal line at least twice and stopped all five shots after New Jersey pulled its goalie for an extra skater with two minutes left, making the last of 29 stops as the final horn sounded. Half of those saves came in the third period.“He keeps us in games, and we count on him in big situations,” said Columbus winger Cam Atkinson, who scored on a penalty shot early in the second period. “You need your best players to be your best players, and he stepped up big time again for us tonight.”Mackenzie Blackwood, recalled from Binghamton of the AHL after starter Cory Schneider went on injured reserve with an abdominal strain, had an inauspicious start but found his footing. He finished with 36 saves and kept the Devils in it.“As the game wore on Philadelphia Flyers Hoodies Womens , he continued to get better, and I thought our team did also,” New Jersey coach John Hynes said.Taylor Hall scored for New Jersey, his 200th career NHL goal. The Devils have lost two straight and five of the last six (1-3-2).“To be honest, it’s pretty disheartening when you do play well and you’re not able to get a win, especially for a guy like Mackenzie who is coming in and playing his first game and played so well,” Hall said.“We found our game and played well and forced the issue at the front of the net but couldn’t get that equalizer.”The Blue Jackets won their second straight and ended a six-game homestand on a high note. They are 3-2-1 in that stretch and hung on to second place in the Metropolitan Division, two points behind Washington.Columbus victimized Blackwood 4:17 into the game. Foligno camped out just to the right of the net, waited for a pass from Pierre-Luc Dubois and tapped in a stunningly easy goal while Blackwood leaned the other way.Atkinson poked the puck between Blackwood’s pad and the post on a penalty shot early in the second, awarded because New Jersey’s Damon Severson hooked Atkinson on a breakaway.Hall went over the top of a diving Bobrovsky on a breakaway later in the second to make it a 2-1 game.NOTES: New Jersey F Marcus Johansson left the game with an injury in the second period and didn’t return. Hynes said he didn’t know Johansson’s condition. … Columbus F Artemi Panarin returned after sitting out Monday’s game with an unspecified injury. … Atkinson has 20 goals in six straight seasons, the second Blue Jackets player to do that. Rick Nash did it eight straight times from 2003 to 2012. … Blackwood became the sixth goalie in NHL history to face a penalty shot in his first NHL start. … Devils D Steven Santini played his first game since Oct. 20 when he broke his jaw against Philadelphia. … With an assist on Foligno’s goal, Dubois has seven goals and 11 assists in his last 18 games. … Hall has 10 points in in his last nine games.UP NEXT:Devils: Hosts Ottawa on Friday night.Blue Jackets: At Philadelphia on Saturday. NEWARK, N.J. (AP) For the first time since spending $340 million to buy the New Jersey Devils in the summer of 2013, Josh Harris and David Blitzer are getting a chance to see the team play some meaningful games in the final months of the NHL season.Following Saturday’s 2-1 comeback win over the New York Islanders Philadelphia Flyers Hats Womens , the Devils hold a five-point lead over Columbus in the race for the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, and a seven-point edge over the Islanders for the second wild-card spot with 20 games left in the regular season.While it is still too early to start celebrating, the Devils’ five-year playoff drought might be ending.”Yeah, I hope we’re going to the playoffs and long run, we’ve said consistently that we want to be an elite Stanley Cup contender year in, year out and there are no shortcuts to that,” Harris said Saturday night in a rare interview after taking part in the ceremony to retire the No. 26 jersey of Patrik Elias, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer.What makes this turnaround remarkable is that the Devils had their worst season in three decades in 2016-17, finishing last in the conference with 70 points.Their win over the Islanders on Saturday night gave them 72 points this season.”We have always said we were going to do things step by step to build long-run winners,” Harris said. ”Sometimes everyone gets impatient and we get impatient. Last year wasn’t great to be me. It’s very exciting to be in the hunt, but we are not done.”Much of the credit for the turnaround has to go to general manager Ray Shero, who came on board in the offseason in 2015. He has revamped the roster with the latest addition being the acquisition of 25-goal scorer Michael Grabner from the Rangers on Thursday in the first deal between the area rivals since the Devils came to New Jersey in 1982.It was just the latest deal by Shero who has acquired forwards Taylor Hall, Kyle Palmieri and Marcus Johansson, defensemen Sami Vatanen and Mirco Mueller and goaltender Eddie Lack in trades and signed free agents John Moore Custom Philadelphia Flyers Jerseys , Brian Boyle, Ben Lovejoy, Will Butcher, Jimmy Hayes and Drew Stafford.Hall is having a career season with 26 goals and 40 assists. His 66 points are 25 more than any player on the team.The bad season last year also helped earn the Devils the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. They got a winner with 19-year-old Nico Hischier, who is centering the top line.”Look when Ray came in in 2015 I still remember him saying things won’t necessarily change overnight, but we’re going to move this in the right direction and that’s all across the organization,” Blitzer said. ”What he has been able to do over the last 2 years, and I think as we look at the future, it has been incredible.”New Jersey still faces an immediate obstacle in its playoff push. Nine of its next 12 games are on the road, including eight with teams in playoff positions heading into Sunday’s games.Blitzer believes the Devils are going to finish what they started this season.”Certain things happen that you plan and certain things happen that you don’t necessarily plan,” he said. ”We got some really interesting pieces that you could not predict at the beginning of the summer. Will Butcher; for Nico to come and do what he is doing. Taylor Hall to turn over what he is doing this season and the leadership he is showing.”It’s just been incredible,” he added. ”I just think you see a team really gelling. It’s also a team not just built for today. This is a team that is built for the future and that’s what makes it so exciting.”—
