Devils' 6-3 Win vs. Blue Jackets: Hughes Does It Again

The New Jersey Devils took an early lead and never looked back in a win they had to have against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Follow us on Twitter: @AlexC_NJD, @NJD_OnTheRush

The New Jersey Devils stayed hot in Columbus, coming away with a 6-3 win over the Blue Jackets, thanks to Jack Hughes' hat trick. That win moves them to 8-2-0 in their last ten games and 16-11-1 for the season. Here are three takeaways as they look to close out the back-to-back with a win over the Anaheim Ducks tonight. 

Nearly Every Devil Came to Play

Though the Devils gave up three goals, pretty much everyone who dressed last night brought a solid effort. Of course, there was Hughes' hat trick, but his linemates — Jesper Bratt and Tyler Toffoli — had impressive games too. 

Toffoli had a big say on Hughes' first goal, which opened the scoring about 40 seconds into the game. He forced Johnny Gaudreau into a terrible turnover and fed Hughes with a perfect pass to make it 1-0. Toffoli also scored a crucial goal early in the second period, just seconds after Kirill Marchenko scored to cut the Blue Jackets' deficit to 2-1. 

As for Bratt, he finished with three assists, moving his point total to 36 points in 28 games — a 105-point pace over 82 games. Though it came with Nico Hischier on the ice, Bratt's pass to Hischier was one of his best plays of the night to make it a 5-2 game. 

It wasn't just the Devils' top dogs that showed up, either. The line of Erik Haula, Dawson Mercer and Alex Holtz had one of their best games of the season. Holtz had a couple of threatening shots that made their way on net, and he made a great pass to Mercer at the net front on Haula's goal that made it 2-0. 

Defensively, all three defense pairs showed up. Jonas Siegenthaler and Šimon Nemec had one of their best defensive outings yet, with both players finishing with expected goals shares (xG%) above 75 percent. 

Kevin Bahl and John Marino had their second consecutive solid effort after shutting down David Pastrnak in a 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday (Dec. 13). Colin Miller also made a good play on Hischier's goal to help Bratt set up Hischier. 

The Devils finished with an xG% of 60.8 percent at five-on-five. It may not have been their cleanest game because of the penalties they took, but they were otherwise very solid, thanks to a close-to-complete effort from everyone who dressed. 

Schmid Made Saves When He Needed To 

In a bit of a surprise (I guess), Akira Schmid got the nod over Vitek Vaněček, who will likely start tonight against the Ducks. Schmid fared relatively well, making 24 saves on 27 shots while giving up 0.43 goals above expected.