Nino Niederreiter and Martin Necas each delivered a goal and an assist as the Carolina Hurricanes drilled the visiting New Jersey Devils in a 5-2 victory Friday night.
Carolina goalie Petr Mrazek made 35 saves for his first triumph in his last four outings.
Warren Foegele, Andrei Svechnikov and Joel Edmundson also scored for Carolina, which improved to 23-3-1 when scoring a game's first goal. Brett Pesce provided two assists.
The Hurricanes were playing their first home game in nearly two weeks following a 2-2-0 road swing.
Mirco Mueller and Joey Anderson scored for the Devils, who were playing their third game in four nights. Anderson, a right winger, scored his first goal of the season with 5:03 remaining.
The Devils were unable to build on Thursday night's victory against Detroit. They went 0-for-4 on the power play.
New Jersey goalie Louis Domingue made 26 saves.
The outcome avenged a Carolina loss from early November. The teams have two more meetings this season.
It was the first time in seven games that Carolina posted the first goal. That came from Niederreiter just 3:43 into the game. He has now scored in consecutive home games.
Mueller tied it for the Devils less than four minutes later. His only other goal came Dec. 13.
Then Foegele's goal put the Hurricanes ahead to stay with more than eight minutes to play in the opening period. It was his first goal in a 13-game stretch.
Svechnikov scored the only goal of the second period, set up by passing from Teuvo Teravainen and Sebastian Aho.
Necas' 15th goal of the season was unassisted, coming 1:44 into the third period. He assisted on the game's first goal.
The Devils held center Nico Hischier out of the lineup for another game despite speculation that he might be ready to return from an injury that has sidelined him since Feb. 1.
--Field Level Media
