Playing without injured star center Jack Hughes, the Devils could not build on their emotional OT win Thursday, falling to the Ottawa Senators 4-1 on Saturday at Canadian Tire Centre.
Timo Meier scored the Devils’ only goal, but New Jersey failed on all five power play opportunities — Connor Brown‘s would-be game-tying, man-advantage goal was taken off the board late in the third.
The Senators also struck for a pair of power-play goals from Brady Tkachuk and Dylan Cozens, the latter of which ended up being the game-winning goal in the first minute of the third period.
Jake Allen stopped 30 shots, taking a tough-luck loss. Allen is just 2-6-1 in his past nine starts and has allowed at least three goals in all seven losses in that span.
Linus Ullmark made 26 saves for Ottawa in his first start since Dec. 27.
The Devils thought Brown had tied the score on the power play late in the third period, when he made a clever play to glove the puck to his stick and push the puck past Ullmark.
But after video review, officials called took Brown’s goal off the board, calling his play a hand pass.
The Senators scored three times in the third period, including Cozens’ man-advantage goal at 0:37 of the frame that gave them the lead for good.
Stutzle scored at 17:53, about 90 seconds after Brown’s disallowed goal, giving Ottawa valuable insurance, and Shane Pinto sealed the Devils’ third loss in four games with an empty-net goal with 1:19 left.
The Devils had the opportunity to put Ullmark and the Senators behind the 8-ball early in the game with a pair of first-period power plays but did not build momentum on either.
Tkachuk, who also added two assists, then gave Ottawa the lead when he beat Allen clean from the left circle at 13:38 of the first.
But Meier knotted the score with his 14th goal of the season at 18:16 of the first from Cody Glass and Brown.
