Devils Fall to Panthers, 4-2 | GAME STORY

NEWARK, N.J. -The Devils pushed until the final seconds but their comeback attempt fell short as New Jersey droped its fifth straight, tonight a 4-2 loss to the Florida Panthers.
"(We need to) be more detailed. We have a game plan and we were lacking again just executing it," Captain Nico Hischier said post-game. "I think we just have to get even more in there, we're not scoring enough and you have to score goals to win game and I think that's the big thing right now."
"I didn't really like our start," said Brendan Smith. "They came out and played a physical, fast game, and put it on us. That's kind of our recipe and we didn't really get to that until later in the second. And then we shot ourselves in the foot again. We keep spotting teams these goals. It seems like a lot of it is us doing it. I think they played well and created chances, we didn't bury on ours, but at the end of the day I think we keep spotting.
"I'm going to be positive here because I think that it's something we can do and we've seen how we can play and in that sense I'm still positive that we have it to get to that next level but right now it's too hard when you keep spotting teams goals."
"When you look at what was the strength of our team was really how well we played defensively," Ruff said. "When you start to get a little frustrated offensively you start to cheat. But the backbone of our game has been how well we play defensively and we can't get away from that. And I thought there was a period of time we got away from it. We gave up a few rush plays, we stood in on a few plays that we shouldn't have stood in on.
"If you want to take something out of the game, when you're struggling offensively, and every team goes through that," Ruff explained. "I've been around a lot of teams and you got through stretches and all of the sudden the goals don't want to go in, all of the sudden you're putting a lot of pucks on the net or they're not getting deflected, you're not getting to that second puck. Your B plan is stick with what got you there and you might have to win 1 nothing or 2-1."

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The Devils hit the road for a two-game road trip, starting with a game Tuesday night against the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the opening nine minutes of the game, Brendan Smith was sent to the penalty box for slashing, giving the visiting team their first power play of the night. Sixteen seconds into the man-advantage, Sam Reinhart scored to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead. Just shy of eight minutes into the second period the Panthers extended their lead to 2-0 with a goal from Gustav Forsling. Zac Dalpe and Aleksi Heponiemi picked up assists.
"When you look at the game, we get behind right off the start, take a penalty, they score a power play goal, and you look at a couple of the goals. They're not goals we want to give up," said Lindy Ruff post-game.
Halfway through the second period, John Marino got the Devils on the board after firing one while Sergei Bobrovsky was trying to recover from accidental contact right before the goal. After review the goal stood, and the Panthers lead was cut to 2-1. However, with 39 seconds left in the middle frame, Florida extended their lead to two goals once again when Reinhart scored his second of the game. Aaron Ekblad and Eetu Luostarinen picked up assists.
In the final four minutes of the third period, Erik Haula scored to cut the Panthers lead to 3-2. Michael McLeod set up Haula with a spin around pass from behind the net. Hamilton picked up an assist as well on the goal. With just over two minutes left the Devils pulled Schmid for the extra attacker as New Jersey was looking for the equalizer. The Devils had several close chances and were pushing but an empty-net goal with 1:11 left in the game gave the Panthers a 4-2 lead.
More notes from tonight's game:
As the Devils look to snap the losing skid, part of it will be going back to how the Devils dominated at the start of the season.
"This is not a feeling you want to have multiple games in a row, and we want to get back to how we started the year," Mercer said. "There's stuff we have to get back to doing. We're playing a good stretch of really good teams right now and we got to make sure we prepare for those and we can't let this carry on."
"We want to stick to our game and do what's been winning us games, but it's really just the little key breakdowns at times," Marino said. "We're just spotting too many Grade-A chances and it's tough to recover from that especially in these tight games where we're not scoring that many goals and it's not going our way. Overall I think we just have to stick to our game and we have to take care of that."
Up next, the Devils hit the road for an away back-to-back starting in North Carolina on Tuesday and wrapping up against the Panthers in Florida on Wednesday.