He has the only goal by a Devils defenseman and owns a plus-1 rating while averaging 18:26 of ice time in two playoff games.
The Devils now trail the best-of-7 series 2-1 and will look to even things up in Game 4 here on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET; FDSNSO, MAX, truTV, MSGSN, TBS, SN360, TVAS).
Nemec was forced to log tough minutes, too, after New Jersey played for three-plus periods with just five defensemen after Johnathan Kovacevic sustained an undisclosed injury in the first period and didn't return.
Additionally, Jonas Siegenthaler logged 27:09 of ice time in his first game since Feb. 4, when he sustained a lower-body injury and missed the remainder of the regular season.
"I'm kind of gassed right now but it's good," Siegenthaler said. "It wasn't easy but we battled through it and it's nice to get a win out of it."
Nemec had five shots on goal in 22:39 of ice time on Friday. He logged 14:12 in his playoff debut in Game 2 at Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday.
"I haven't watched the goal back, but I just thought it was a great play by him to jump in and attack, get a get a hard shot off," Devils coach Sheldon Keefe said of Nemec. "In my head, I sort of thought, man wouldn't this be something if Siegenthaler ends this thing, but if I was really thinking, I would have said, 'Wouldn't this be something if the young guy, Nemec, stepped up so big for us here.'
"Our mindset entering overtime was we got to go attack this, we got to go win this hockey game. We don't want to sit back. We don't want this game to go on forever. Let's be aggressive. Just for [Nemec] to have the mindset to do it, have the energy to do it, and not just sit back and conserve energy with five defensemen ... I loved to see him get rewarded."
Nemec (21 years, 69 days) became the second-youngest defenseman in NHL history to score an overtime goal in the playoffs, behind only Andrei Zyuzin (20 years, 97 days). He also became the youngest player in Devils/Colorado Rockies/Kansas City Scouts history to do so, eclipsing Adam Henrique (22 years, 80 days).
"I'm happy for him," Siegenthaler said. "He played pretty good [Friday] and maybe because he's a little younger than everyone else, he still had some legs. He played unbelievable for us."
The Devils were again without defensemen Luke Hughes and Brenden Dillon, who each have missed the past two games after sustaining undisclosed injuries in a 4-1 loss to the Hurricanes in Game 1.
"I'm just so impressed with our team tonight ... the defense in particular," Keefe said. "It's so fitting that Nemec gets the winner for us. Just our whole team, the way that we dug in here tonight and stayed with it. I learned a lot about our team. That's a hard hockey game out there and our backs are essentially against the wall. Our guys just dug in and found a way."
