TAMPA, FLORIDA – NOVEMBER 18: Jake Guentzel #59 of the Tampa Bay Lightning scores a second period goal against the New Jersey Devils at Benchmark International Arena on November 18, 2025 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mark Taylor/Getty Images) Getty Images
It’s not like New Jersey hasn’t been here before.
Surviving long stretches of the season without their top center and franchise player has basically become a rite of winter for the Devils, who surely hoped the return of three regulars from injury to it’s lineup would give a boost to what was starting to look like the Utica Comets South. But even with Dougie Hamilton, Evgenii Dadonov, and Connor Brown back it was painfully obvious how badly the Devils are going to miss Jack Hughes.
New Jersey peppered Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy with 32 shots – most of those, and probably the best of them, in the first two periods – but never truly solved the big Russian. Meanwhile, Jake Guentzel had a hat trick and Nikita Kucherov added a goal and an assist as the Jack Hughes-less Devils fell 5-1 to the Lightning at Benchmark International Arena on Tuesday night in Tampa, Fl.
New Jersey lost for the first time on the current five-game road trip (2-1) and the Devils dropped to 13-5-1 and fell into second in both the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference.
The game was scoreless midway through the first when Dawson Mercer turned the puck over to Guentzel at the Lightning blue line. Guentzel raced down the right wing and snapped a shot past Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom along the ice to make it 1-0 at 11:40.
It was looking as if the Devils would escape the period down just a goal, but with just 22 seconds to go in the frame, Luke Hughes turned the puck over to Anthony Cirelli and Cirelli found Kucherov in the slot to make it 2-0.
A Luke Hughes’ hooking call would lead to a Guentzel power-play goal midway through the second and what looked at the time like an insurmountable 3-0 lead, but a fortunate bounce off Nico Hischier’s skate was gloved into the net by the Lightning’s J.J. Moser to snap Vasileskiy’s shutout with 2:13 left in the period.
The Devils didn’t seem to get much of a momentum swing from the Hischier goal however. They gave up two in a three-minute span before the third was eight minutes old and were outshot 12-5 by a Tampa team that was playing a “get right” game after being embarrassed by Vancouver at home on Sunday.
Some of the returning regulars are anything but.
Dadonov, signed in the offseason to fill out the top six, made just his second appearance as a Devil after missing 17 straight following a hand injury sustained in the season opener against Carolina on Oct. 9. Meanwhile, Connor Brown played his 12th game of the of year but his first since Oct. 30 at San Jose – a stretch of 12 games. Each player had a shot on goal and Brown was a minus-2 on the night.
Dougie Hamilton, who’d missed the last four games, had three shots and logged nearly 20 minutes in his return.
Another game, another adventure for Jacob Markstrom. Markstrom stopped 24 of the 29 shots he faced for an .828 save percentage. Sure, you can’t really blame him when Luke Hughes turns the puck over and Cirelli finds ones of the game’s great shooters in the slot all alone, but at some point he needs to make a save he has no business making. He’s had one game all season with a save percentage above .900 and he’s surrendered some seriously questionable goals. That first Guentzel goal when the game’s scoreless. It’s a breakaway. It’s also not a great shot and it’s along the ice. He didn’t exactly cover himself in glory on the Darren Raddysh goal that all but ended the game at 4:49 of the third.
The Devils five game road trip continues at 7 pm, Thursday night when they head south to Sunrise to take on the defending Stanley Cup Champion Panthers, who are also missing a bunch of key players.
So what did you think? You have to give them credit. They’d piled up a bunch of points before tonight under very trying circumstances and the Lightning are good and have traditionally had New Jersey’s number. The Lightning were missing some key guys on D (Viktor Hedman, Erik Cernak) but the Devils offense still looked cluless for most of the game.