RECAP: Ducks crush Devils, 5-1
Hampus Lindholm and Jacob Silfverberg scored 1:52 apart to break open a tie game, Corey Perry got his team-high 19th goal and the Anaheim Ducks defeated the New Jersey Devils 5-1 on Friday night.
Patrick Maroon and Silfverberg scored in the final 3:33, helping the Ducks remain tied with Nashville atop the overall NHL standings following the Predators' 4-3 win over Washington.
Ilya Bryzgalov faced only 15 shots while earning his first victory in three starts since returning to the Ducks on Dec. 9 as a free agent. He was the backup to Jean-Sebastien Giguere during Anaheim's 2007 Stanley Cup championship season.
Playing their second straight game without Jaromir Jagr and Tuomo Ruutu, both of whom were back home with the flu, the Devils got their only goal from Martin Havlat.
Cory Schneider stopped 14 of 15 shots in the first period, but was replaced by backup Keith Kincaid at the start of the second because of an undisclosed injury. Kincaid gave up four goals on 25 shots.
The Devils, coming off a 5-3 victory at Los Angeles on Wednesday, haven't won consecutive games on the same road trip since opening the season with wins at Philadelphia, Florida and Tampa Bay.
The two-time defending Pacific Division champions outshot the Devils 27-6 through the first two periods, grabbing their 3-1 lead at 5:08 of the second. Lindholm used defenseman Adam Larsson as a screen and beat Kincaid to the stick side with a 40-foot wrist shot from the slot after getting a drop pass from Matt Beleskey.
Moments later, Andrew Cogliano circled the net with the puck and slipped it to Silfverberg, who had the blade of his stick perfectly positioned in the crease to redirect the puck in.
Beleskey, back in the lineup after sitting out Wednesday as a healthy scratch, stung Schneider with a hard 40-foot snap shot about 20 seconds before Perry opened the scoring at 4:09 of the first.
The 2011 NHL MVP, who got his eighth career hat trick in Wednesday's 4-0 win over Toronto, made a quick centering pass into the crease from a sharp angle to the right of the net and it caromed in off the blade of Schneider's stick.
The Devils tied it on a similar play at 15:12 of the first, during a power play while Anaheim defenseman Sami Vatanen was off for tripping Michael Cammalleri. Havlat threw the puck toward the crease from a sharp angle to the right of the net and it banked in off Bryzgalov's right skate.
NOTES: C Patrik Elias is the only Devils player who has been with them since they beat Anaheim for their third Stanley Cup title in 2003. C Scott Gomez also played for New Jersey in the finals that year, then played with four other teams before rejoining Devils on Dec. 1. ... Devils D Andy Greene has played 46 games this season without scoring a goal, the most by any non-goalie who doesn't have one. His drought goes back 58 games to March 20, 2014, when he scored against Bryzgalov in overtime to give the Devils a 4-3 win over Minnesota. ... The Ducks completed a stretch of eight consecutive home games with a 5-3-0 record. They travel up the freeway Saturday night for a rematch with the Stanley Cup champion Kings, who beat them 3-2 in overtime on Nov. 15 at Staples Center to gain a split of a home-and-home set.