On Saturday evening, the New Jersey Devils and Dallas Stars returned to action in Newark, New Jersey, attempting to get off to a hot start following the 4 Nations break. In a pretty tight contest, the Stars came out with a 4-2 victory. Casey DeSmith was stellar, stopping 30 of 32 en route to his 10th win of the season. They improve to 36-18-2; the Devils fall to 31-21-6.
The Devils looked pretty flat right off the bat. A little less than four minutes in, Evgenii Dadonov scored to make it 1-0 Stars. Then Brenden Dillon took an unsportsmanlike penalty, leading to a second Stars goal on the ensuing power play. Thomas Harley wired it in to stretch the lead to two.
Y’all know about Thomas Harley now? pic.twitter.com/q1BUL6cAvx
— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) February 22, 2025
In the second, the Devils started to really turn it up, but DeSmith stayed strong. At the second horn, he had stopped all 21 shots – +2.27 goals saved above expected (GSAx – per MoneyPuck).
The third period was more of the same. The Devils continued to generate some very high danger chances but couldn’t finish, until Jack Hughes finally broke through to make it 2-1. But 36 seconds later, a defensive breakdown led to a Matt Duchene goal to restore Dallas’ two goal lead. Then, it got interesting again as 65 seconds after that, J. Hughes scored again to make it 3-2. But as the game was dying down, the Devils couldn’t get Jake Allen out of his net. They finally got him out with 54 seconds to go and got a power play with 44 to go, but couldn’t capitalize on the short 6-on-4. Wyatt Johnston added an empty netter with 8 seconds left to make it 4-2.
The Devils will return to action on Sunday evening in Nashville; the Stars will stay local as they face the New York Islanders, also tomorrow night.
