OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — No shootout this time. Jaromir Jagr powered the New Jersey Devils to a big overtime win.
Jagr scored a power-play goal 3:39 into the extra period, and the Devils beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on an emotional Saturday night in Canada’s capital.
It was the Senators’ first game since the shooting death of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial on Wednesday. A touching tribute took place prior to puck drop as players and fans united to pay tribute to Cirillo and Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, who was killed in a hit-and-run attack Monday near Montreal.
Marek Zidlicky and Damon Severson also scored for the Devils, who snapped a four-game winless streak. Cory Schneider had 33 saves.
“That was a big win,” coach Peter DeBoer said. “We needed that. As a group we wanted to make sure we came up and played a solid game here after (Friday’s) game and I thought we did that and got rewarded for it.”
With Clarke MacArthur in the box for high sticking, Jagr beat Robin Lehner for his NHL-record 125th game-winning goal. Eric Gelinas and Adam Henrique each got an assist on the second of the season for the 42-year-old Jagr.
“I was hoping to score 4-on-3,” Jagr said. “It was a great opportunity because we had a whole two minutes 4-on-3 and with the players we’ve got we should be able to score. It was a great opportunity for us.”
New Jersey was coming off a 3-2 loss to Dallas on Friday night, extending the Devils’ NHL record for shootout losses to 18 straight.
Alex Chiasson and Bobby Ryan scored for the Senators, who had won four in a row. Lehner made 26 stops in front of a sellout crowd of 19,266.
Ottawa hadn’t played since last Saturday. Wednesday’s game against Toronto was postponed due to the attack at Parliament Hill.
Ryan’s power-play goal midway through the third tied it at 2
“You can’t fault the effort, it was there,” Ryan said. “I thought we took over the game in the third for a bit and for large portions of it.”
Ottawa grabbed a 1-0 lead when Chiasson beat Schneider for a power-play goal at 10:09 of the second. But Severson got New Jersey on the board with an unassisted score 80 seconds later.
Severson took advantage of an Ottawa turnover along the boards at center ice and beat Lehner high over the shoulder.
“Losing two games in a shootout isn’t fun, obviously you want to win those games,” said Severson, a Manitoba native who was playing his first game in Canada. “We knew we would come in here and face a tough test, but going into overtime we were real confident we could pull out the two points and we did.”
New Jersey took the lead on Zidlicky’s power-play goal from the point at 16:45 of the second.
“Our first period we played fantastic defensively,” Lehner said. “They took over a little bit in the second and they capitalized on our mistakes a little bit and we had a great third again and didn’t give up. I thought we gave ourselves a really good chance of winning the game.”
NOTES: The Senators were without Marc Methot (back). Jared Cowen, Erik Condra and Colin Greening were healthy scratches. … The Devils were without Jordin Tootoo (foot), and Martin Havlat (facial lacerations). Adam Larsson was a healthy scratch.
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