The New Jersey Devils beat the Carolina Hurricanes at home in game three of the Stanley Cup playoffs, continuing their strategy of losing games one and two only to completely dominate game three. The Devils had a lot of players shine in game three, particularly Luke and Jack Hughes.
The Hughes brothers shined in game three for the New Jersey Devils
The Devils took game three by a final score of 8-4, while the Hurricanes did score two goals under a minute apart in the third, the win for the Devils was apparent from the start.
Jack Hughes had one of his best games of the entire postseason thus far with two goals and two assists. Additionally, Timo Meier scored his first goal of the playoffs and the Devils got their first goal on the power play in the second round thanks to an Ondrej Palat goal assisted in part by Luke Hughes.
Luke had two assists on the night, one being the power play goal a little past the halfway point of the third. His first assist came in the second period and included a pass from Jack to Luke. You can check out the replay below:
Assisted by Luke Hughes & Jack Hughes 🔥@NJDevils | #NJDevils | #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/NyD7xJWtaY
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) May 7, 2023
Luke joined a pretty elite group of defensemen with the win. He is just the sixth teenage defenseman to record a multi-point night in his playoff debut. The other defensemen are Miro Heiskanen, Erik Karlsson, Scott Niedermayer, Jim Pavese and Ray Bourque. This is a pretty good group of players the young Hughes brother is joining.
Talk about a #StanleyCup Playoffs debut… And Luke Hughes did it with his brother by his side.
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) May 7, 2023
#NHLStats: https://t.co/CvG0wygdrR pic.twitter.com/lEExhx1FRZ
What comes next?
It was not all good news in game three for the Devils. While they did have a really good performance, they did give up three shorthanded goals, one being a Jordan Martinhook penalty shot in the second period.
Yes, this was a high scoring game in which the Devils were already up big by the time they gave up two quick shorthanded goals in the third, but at the sometime that is not a result you want to see.
The Devils still find themselves down 2-1 in this series. While they have proven that they can come back from a 2-0 deficit, they need to be perfect in game four on Tuesday night.