Jack Hughes Buries Overtime Winner as Devils Storm Back to Stun Islanders 5-4

The Islanders had the game. They had it with both hands. Two goals up in the third period, at home, against a Devils team that had spent the night chasing, and the building was ready to celebrate a win that would have steadied a wobbling season. Then New Jersey did what New Jersey has been doing all autumn: refused to go away.

Three straight goals wiped out the lead. The third of them, Dougie Hamilton's power-play strike, tied the game and sent it to overtime. And 78 seconds into the extra period, Jack Hughes took the puck on a two-on-one rush, kept it himself, and fired a shot past Ilya Sorokin's blocker. Devils 5, Islanders 4. Another comeback, another win, another night where the team that looked beaten found a way.

Hughes finished with two points on the night, as did Luke Evangelista, who also scored. Evan Rodrigues and Declan Chisholm added goals, Jake Allen made 19 saves, and the Devils have now won four straight and eight of their last nine. They sit at 12-5-0, and the remarkable thing about this stretch is how many different ways they have found to win — blowouts, tight ones, and now a game they trailed by two in the third.

For the Islanders, the loss stings in a very specific way. Anthony Duclair, Matthew Schaefer, Simon Holmstrom and Victor Eklund all scored. Bo Horvat set up two goals. Sorokin, under siege for much of the night, stopped 45 shots. And still they lost, their third straight defeat, a run that has them at 0-2-1 over that stretch and searching for answers. When a goaltender makes 45 saves and you still walk away with nothing, the problem is not in net.

That is the gap between these two teams right now. New Jersey keeps manufacturing points from games that look lost. The Devils trailed, adjusted, and then simply outlasted the Islanders, who could not hold a two-goal lead on home ice. It is the kind of loss that lingers, the kind a coach replays in his head on the bus home, because the game was there to be won and it slipped away in a handful of minutes.

Hughes, meanwhile, keeps adding to a season that is becoming a highlight reel of decisive moments. The overtime winner was not a lucky bounce or a broken play. It was a star player, on a two-on-one, choosing the shot and executing it, the way the best players do when the game is on the line. The Devils are rolling, and their captain of the moment is the reason why.