Devils Decked by Jackets as Dillon Leaves With Injury in 1,000th Game

That one hurt, literally and figuratively.

Bad enough for the once unbeatable-at-home Devils to have dropped two in a row to a pair of division rivals at Prudential Center in what, let’s face it, were the most winnable games on this current four-game homestand. But to lose in the manner they did by blowing a two-goal lead; and now it’s looking like they may have lost defenseman Brenden Dillon. …

Miles Wood scored one goal and set up another, Adam Fantilli had three assists, and Columbus scored four unanswered goals to beat New Jersey 5-3 in a fight-filled game Monday night.

The Devils dropped to 4-5 since losing Jack Hughes to injury back on Nov. 12 and a lot of the goodwill they’d generated from a gutsy three-game winning streak last week seems to have evaporated.

Goalie Jake Allen was as bad in Monday’s loss as he was outstanding in Friday’s win over Buffalo.

Allen allowed five goals on 24 shots – a .792 save percentage. The worst of a bad bunch came at 13 minutes, 31 seconds of the third when he grabbed a puck behind his net and passed it right onto the tape of Columbus forward Charlie Coyle’s stick. Coyle fed Wood in the slot and the former Devil buried his seventh of the year to put Columbus up 5-3 less than two minutes after New Jersey had made it a one-goal game.

And it all started out so well.

The Devils came out flying and grabbed a 2-0 lead in the first 3:03 on just five shots.

They got a power-play goal from Nico Hischier 1:26 in with Zach Werenski in the box for hooking.

Ondrej Palat scored his second of the year just 1:37 later after Arseny Gritsyuk forced a turnover and the Devils looked to be rolling.

Leading 2-1 late in the first New Jersey appeared to go up 3-1 on a Timo Meier goal at 16:46. But Columbus won a goalie interference challenge to keep it a 2-1 game.

The momentum turned about a minute into the second when following a scrum around the Devils net Dmitri Voronkov dropped Dillon in a fight. Voronkov came down on top of Dillon, who hit the ice face first. Dillon, who was playing in his thousandth career NHL game had to be helped to the locker room and only returned briefly in the second period.

Twenty-seven seconds later Sean Monahan knotted the score at 2-2 by walking around Jonas Siegenthaler.

The Devils spent the rest of the period looking for payback. Siegenthaler fought Fantilli, who’d taken a pretty viscious slash from Connor Brown and got kicked out for not having his jersey tied down. Later in the period Stefan Noesen fought Voronkov and Paul Cotter fought Brendan Smith.

With Dillon unable to return and Siegenthaler ejected, the Devils played the last 36:02 with just four defensemen. Simon Nemec played over 30 minutes and Luke Hughes played 26:29 and both were clearly worn down.

Hughes was a minus-3, and was on for two Columbus goals 34 seconds apart in the third.

He was also the intended recipient of Allen’s ill-fated pass that led to Wood’s goal.

Up Next

Things don’t get any easier from here. The Devils host the Dallas Stars at 7 p.m., Wednesday night. The Stars are the second best team in the West, and in the NHL at 17-5-4 and they’re real, real good away from home (9-1-3).

Your Thoughts

Talk about what a difference a couple of games makes. Things seemed so much brighter Friday afternoon afternoon. Now they’ve lost two to division rivals and may need to add another AHL defenseman to their decimated corps. Is anyone else feeling less than optimistic about December?