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Potent power play propels Devils past Flyers

Jan 23, 2008 - 4:59 AM PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- The New Jersey Devils' power play had been rendered powerless in their last four games. On Tuesday, it was nearly unstoppable.

Zach Parise and Patrik Elias each had two goals as the Devils benefited from tying a team-record five power-play tallies and cruised to a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers.

Defenseman Johnny Oduya, captain Jamie Langenbrunner and Dainius Zubrus also had power-play goals for New Jersey, which was 5-for-7 with the man advantage on Tuesday. The Devils were 0-for-15 with the power play in their previous four contests.

"We shot the pucks tonight," Devils coach Brent Sutter said. "We moved the puck well. A lot of plays were made stick to stick. We got into the areas that you needed to get in to have success. We made the most of our opportunities."

Philadelphia's Daniel Briere was left speechless at New Jersey's success on the power play.

"They were 0-for-15 on the power play before tonight's game," Briere said. "How (can) they can come in here and score five? It's just amazing."

With the victory, New Jersey leapfrogged the idle Pittsburgh Penguins for first place in the Atlantic Division. The Devils also improved to 15-1-1 in their last 17 games against the Flyers since April 2006.

"There's teams that just seem to have your number and do whatever they can against you," Briere said. "That has been the case against us this year."

After Briere opened the scoring 2:53 into the first period, Oduya leveled the game just over three minutes later.

With New Jersey on the power play, Oduya blasted a shot from just outside the left faceoff circle for his second of the season.

"Team-wise, we have been struggling, but at times, we've played well," Oduya said. "We just got the bounces early and got some goals."

Although Mike Knuble regained the lead for the Flyers just 95 seconds later, Langenbrunner tied the contest by wristing the puck between the pads of Antero Niittymaki for his seventh goal of the season.

Zubrus gave the Devils a 3-2 lead with 2:16 remaining in the first period.

Stationed on the inside of the left faceoff circle, Zubrus scored his fourth goal of the season against his former team - and eighth overall - by wristing the puck past Niittymaki.

The Devils doubled their advantage midway through the second period.

Oduya skated up the right wing before feeding Elias on the doorstep to give New Jersey a 4-2 lead.

"I saw that they were going to a change," Oduya said. "I caught two of their forwards coming off the bench. I just kept skating and took it wide. I saw Patrik (Elias) and I just threw it in there."

Parise added another power-play goal 4 1/2 minutes later, which signalled the end of the night for Niittymaki, who fell to 0-5-3 in his last eight starts against the Devils. He finished with 15 saves.

"They were struggling on the power play, but it worked for them tonight," Niittymaki said. "They had a couple of good bounces, but that is how it goes when you play well like they did."

"From top to bottom, everyone was working tonight," Parise said. "In all aspects of the game, we did really well. We were skating and that's what caused them to take a lot of penalties."

After Jeff Carter tallied with eight seconds remaining in the second period to cut the Devils' lead to 5-3, Parise scored 32 seconds into the third and Elias tallied 57 seconds after that to seal the win.

"I thought that tonight we played a real intelligent game," Sutter said. "We did a lot of good things here by keeping their scoring chances down. It was a great effort by everybody."