When New Jersey rolled onto the ice for its first NHL game of the season, it wasn't long before two of the team's profile acquisitions, Nikita Gusev and PK Subban, presented themselves to the home crowd with goals and goals.

By the time Subban's chain mate Blake Coleman hit his second goal of the evening, 14 minutes had passed by the middle period and the team led by 4-0. The stars seemed to think the match was over, but the guests from Canada never thought so.

- The first 40 minutes did not go as we wanted, but the turning point came with five left, there was good atmosphere on the bench and everyone was peppering each other. The focus was on scoring goals, says Blake Wheeler, who himself completed the turn in the penalty shootout.

"Just kept playing"

For the important goal came, eleven seconds before the break signal, Dmitry Kulikov made a first reduction, which in the third period was followed by three more goals. And suddenly the score was 4–4.

- We just kept playing, the goal gave us hope, to go into the third and know that you are only down with three goals instead of four was a big difference. We thought we deserved better in the last game (4-6 against the New York Rangers) found a way to fight us back in the match, says Mathieu Perreault, who himself reduced the reduction to 3-4, to the press.

It was not as cheerful as it was in the Devils camp.

- Smooth, of course, says Jesper Bratt to Aftonbladet.

- But it's the first game and everything doesn't sit, especially when so many new guys come in. However, we still have a very good feeling in the team. It will be fun to continue working on this. Already tonight we fly to Buffalo and tomorrow we have a match again. Just learn from this and go out and drive again.

Other straight for Washington

After the receipt, there were no more game goals, and the match had to be decided on penalties, where Blake Wheeler set the deciding penalty.

On Long Island, Washington took its second win in the season start via a 2-1 win against the New York Islanders. Nicklas Bäckström fit TJ Oshie as he put decisive 2-1, Sweden's first point of the season.