Hughes Has Natural Hat Trick, Devils Down Caps | GAME STORY

In the immortal words of Lou Brown from Major League, "We won a game yesterday. We win today, that's two in a row."
And that's exactly what the Devils have after wins on back-to-back nights fresh off tonight's victory against the Washington Capitals.
Backstopped by Vitek Vanecek, and the first career hat trick for Jack Hughes, the Devils defeated the Capitals 5-1 on Saturday night.
"A hatty is a hatty," Hughes said of celebrating his hat trick, "but obviously for it to come in a win makes you want to enjoy it more. That's a great win for us and that's a team that's had our number the last bunch of years, even the start of this year."
Hughes had two goals in the second period and another in the third to put his star power on display against the Capitals. Scoring the three final goals of the night, Hughes tallied the natural hat trick, and took the team lead in goals with his ninth, tenth and eleventh on the season.
Nico Hischier opened the scoring with a power-play goal and Fabian Zetterlund had the fifth of the night for New Jersey.
It wasn't until there were under nine minutes to play that the Capitals would find a way to beat Vanecek, John Carlsson scoring on the Capitals' power play for their lone goal of the night.
Vanecek put together a remarkable performance, with big-time saves and giving little by way of rebounds. He was able to stop his former teammate Alex Ovechkin who had eight shots for the Capitals and rarely misses his chances.
"He's been a beast for us," Hughes said of Vanecek after the game.
Vanecek, who spent several years facing Ovechkin shots in practice knew that his former teammate would really want to score tonight.
"In the practices, it's different than in a game," Vanecek said of facing Ovechkin's shots. "In the game, he's trying more, I know he wanted to score on me but I was really focused to stop everything."
The win gives the Devils wins on back-to-back nights, coming off their first loss in nearly a month.
As the quote continues "If we win tomorrow that's called a winning streak." While the Devils don't have a game tomorrow, they have one coming up on Monday, hoping to get a streak back up and running.

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The Devils are on the road at Madison Square Garden to face the Rangers on Monday night.
Here are some observations from the game:
- Jack Hughes had the hat trick, and while that's a big accomplishment, his head coach took the time to point out other areas of Hughes' game that also played a big role in tonight's win against the Capitals.

"We can sit here and talk about his goal scoring, but the plays away from the puck I thought Jack was really good," Ruff said, "Came back hard and broke up a couple of plays away from the puck, I thought he did a really good job.

"I thought the most unselfish play was when he had three (goals) he was looking to give (the puck) to Haula." - Over the course of the last few weeks, the common refrain has been that the Devils' wins have been bred from full-team efforts. Against the Capitals, that's what the Devils needed, losing Nathan Bastian early in the game. He played just three shifts, totaling 1:25 before he left the game. Just 5:58 into the game the Devils were shorthanded without Bastian.

Bastian's absence came after he took a hard hit from Capitals forward T.J. Oshie.

Lindy Ruff did not have an update on Bastian's status post-game, but Bastian did not return to the game. - In his absence, it was Dawson Mercer who took on the minutes on the first power play unit. Mercer slotted right into the net-front role on New Jersey's first man-advantage of the night and played a vital role in the commotion in front of Washington netminder Charlie Lindgren that led to Nico Hischier's opening goal.

Dougie Hamilton delivered the shot from the blue line, Mercer was on the doorstep for the rebound and with Kuemper making the save, Hischier lifted the puck over Lindgren's pad for his 10th goal of the season.

Hischier is the first Devil to reach 10 goals this season. - Hischier's third power-play goal this season is one short of his career-high, a mark he set last season with four power-play goals. The biggest significance is how many games it has taken to reach these marks. Last season, Hischier had four in 40 games played, tonight he reached three in 21 games. - There had to have been added motivation leading up to this game for Vitek Vanecek. This past off-season the Washington Capitals traded him to New Jersey, giving up on the goalie that they drafted in 2014 in the second round.

With the way Vanecek has been performing this season, there may be a couple of regrets on the Capitals side of the fence, with the Devils reaping all the benefits of a goaltender like Vanecek just hitting his prime. Against his former team, Vanecek faced 38 shots, letting in just a single goal.

After the sixth save by Vanecek made on Alex Ovechkin, the Capitals captain skated over to his former teammate and gave him a tap on the pads, Vitek returning the tap to Ovechkin. - In 14 games played and 12 games started so far this season the 26-year-old has won his 10th game of the season. All of last season in Washington Vanecek had 20 wins in 42 games played. A change of scenery paying off for both Vanecek and the Devils at the same time. - A two-goal effort by Jack Hughes in the second period ultimately sealed the fate of the Capitals, his two second-period goals put the Devils up 3-0 after forty minutes of play. Both goals were overflowing with skill, his first, cutting through and splitting Capitals defensemen Carlsson and Erik Gustafsson, before making a fake move Lindgren bit on, Hughes was able to tuck the puck, while below the goal line, between the post and Kuemper's skate.

Tweet from @NJDevils: Jack Hughes is not from this universe. pic.twitter.com/NBqroQlvR7

He would later follow that goal up by threading the needle on his second of the night. From a tight angle and with millimeters to shoot at, Hughes bounced the puck off of Kuemper's mask into the net to give the Devils the decisive 3-0 lead. - Hughes is up there with the top players in the league this season when it comes to multi-point games. Tonight was his ninth of the year, with only Dallas' Jason Robertson (12), Edmonton's Connor McDavid (10), Boston's David Pastrnak (10) and Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov (10) having more than Hughes this season. (Per: NHL PR)