Noesen OT goal lifts Devils past Lightning

Stefan Noesen scored 3:19 into overtime and the New Jersey Devils defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday.

Noesen turned and fired a quick shot off at the netfront on the power play. It was his first career regular-season overtime goal.

“I don’t really go out there in overtime, much,” Noesen said. “I just think the way they saw it, [Tampa Bay] was attacking kind of high and there was some space underneath the net. Get [the puck] down there, weasel your way in there and get a lucky bounce.”

“‘Noes’ is our netfront guy,” New Jersey forward Jack Hughes said. “That was kind of just a broken play and boom, it pops on his stick and he ended the game for us.”

Hughes had a goal and an assist, Ondrej Palat scored, Jesper Bratt had two assists and Jacob Markstrom made 23 saves for the Devils (26-15-4), who are 2-0-1 in their past three games. New Jersey was 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.

“Two PK goals against last game, so we wanted a nice bounce back,” Noesen said. “That’s a deadly power play, so the PK did a great job. I don’t know how many shots we had in the third period (outshot 9-1); it wasn’t many. You’ve just got to find a way to win games sometimes.”

Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov each scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves for the Lightning (22-15-3), who had won two straight.

“The problem was we probably didn’t start on time tonight,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “[Vasilevskiy] had a (heck) of a game keeping us in it and we had our chances. We had our looks in the third and their goalie made saves. It was a tale of two games and it ended up going to overtime, probably the way it should have.”

Palat gave the Devils a 1-0 lead at 8:10 of the first period when he tipped in a Dougie Hamilton point shot.

Hedman’s wrist shot from the left point redirected in off of Johnathan Kovacevic’s shin pad to tie it 1-1 at 9:57.

“I think it was a game probably with two faces,” Hedman said. “I think in the first period ‘Vasy’ kept us in it, even in the second, too. Third period, we tilted the ice to tie the game and had a lot of good looks to end it, too. But at the end of the day, it’s a step in the right direction on the road.”

Hughes made it 2-1 at 15:16 of the second period when he skated in as the high man on a 3-on-3 rush and beat Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot over the glove.

Brayden Point had a wide open net at the edge of the crease on the power play, but Markstrom stretched out to make a desperation save with his left arm at 3:19 of the third period.

“Their power play stresses the heck out of you,” New Jersey coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We took two penalties that we don’t want to take there, especially at the end of the second and in the third. But guys did a really good job and when we had a breakdown, obviously ‘Marky’ made a huge save for us.”

Kucherov tied it 2-2 at 8:05 of the third when he accepted a lead pass from Brandon Hagel, skated in on a breakaway and scored with a snap shot blocker side on Markstrom.

The Lightning had taken the first two meetings between the two teams this season 8-5 and 4-0.

“It wasn’t even about the points,” Hughes said. “We wanted to play a better brand of hockey and let them know that we’re a tougher team than we played [like] in the prior two games. That was a good game for us.”

NOTES: Palat scored his 10th goal of the season; the Devils are the only team with eight 10-goal scorers this season. … With his 410th NHL point, Bratt tied Zach Parise for 10th on the franchise’s all-time scoring list. … Hughes had a game-high five shots. ... New Jersey is 21-0-1 entering the third period with a lead this season.