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Parise propels Devils past Penguins

Feb 5, 2008 - 5:13 AM NEWARK, New Jersey (Ticker) -- The New Jersey Devils decided to leave that "road warrior" stuff to the New York Giants.

Zach Parise scored on a deflection just 37 seconds into overtime as the Devils rallied for a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday.

The victory capped a 2-3-0 homestand and boosted New Jersey into a first-place tie with the Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers in the Atlantic Division. All three teams have 63 points.

Patrik Elias collected a goal and two assists and captain Jamie Langenbrunner and David Clarkson also scored to help the Devils erase a 3-1 third-period deficit.

In overtime, Elias floated a wrist shot from just below the right point that Parise tipped past between the pads of goaltender for his 20th tally of the season.

"It was 2-on-2, maybe 2-on-4 and Patty was open on the wall," Parise said. "It was just a good play by him to get the puck on net."

"I just stayed patient with the puck," added Elias, who has 10 points in his last six games. "I saw that one of our (defensemen) was going to the net, so they had to decide to cover him or (Parise). I just tried to shoot at the net. It was a great tip by him."

Ryan Malone, Petr Sykora and Jordan Staal scored goals and All-Star Evgeni Malkin had two assists for Pittsburgh, which fell to 3-3-1 in seven games without injured captain Sidney Crosby. One of the victories, however, came at New Jersey on Tuesday.

"They didn't really come at us, we stopped playing the way we did in the first two periods," Sykora said. "Marty (Brodeur) really kept them in the game. Then they got the bounces, they got goals."

Until Monday, the road team won each of the last nine games in the series to tie an NHL record.

"That's definitely unusual, especially with big division games," said Brodeur, who made 31 saves. "Hopefully, we put an end to that."

Malone opened the scoring 2:26 into the second period, putting a rebound of Malkin's wrister under Brodeur's left pad for his 15th goal.

Sykora doubled the Penguins' advantage and recorded his 600th career point with just over eight minutes left in the second period. The former Devil, who won a Stanley Cup with the team in 2000, snapped a wrist shot from the top of the left circle that deflected off defenseman Vitaly Vishnevski and caromed past Brodeur.

Langenbrunner halved the deficit by scoring his ninth goal with 42 seconds remaining in the period.

After Staal restored Pittsburgh's two-goal cushion 4 1/2 minutes into the third period, Elias and Clarkson struck 1:44 apart to force overtime.

According to Elias, the Devils responded to a challenge from coach Brent Sutter.

"He told us we weren't working hard enough, that we weren't competing," Elias said. "Sometimes you need to know that. We responded. We learned from that."

"We responded the way I wanted and expected us to respond," Sutter said. "We definitely played the third period and the overtime like we cared."