Strome scored after missing four games with a lower-body injury, and Alexandar Georgiev made 20 saves for the Rangers (45-20-6), who are two points behind the Carolina Hurricanes for first place in the Metropolitan Division and four points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who they play at Madison Square Garden on Thursday.
"Good teams have to make sure those losing streaks don't stay long (New York was 0-1-1 in its past two games), and we managed to play smart hockey when we needed to today," Georgiev said. "In the second period, there wasn't much going on, but we were leading and kind of played the score. That was huge."
Nico Daws made 14 saves, and Yegor Sharangovich scored for the Devils (24-40-6) before leaving the game with an injury following a fight with Braden Schneider at 10:05 of the first period. He will be reevaluated Wednesday, coach Lindy Ruff said.
Sharangovich gave the Devils a 1-0 lead with an unassisted goal at 6:56 of the first period, but Strome's power-play goal at 11:07 made it 1-1.
The Rangers were on the power play because Sharangovich was called for an instigator penalty for fighting Schneider immediately after the Rangers defenseman hit Jesper Boqvist in the neutral zone.
"I think he probably overreacted a little bit," Ruff said of Sharangovich. "It was a good hit, nothing that was wrong. I'll never criticize when a teammate comes to defense of another teammate. I think he may have thought [Schneider] jumped when he hit him."
Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said Schneider's hit sparked the team.
"It was a good, solid hit," Gallant said. "He stepped up in the neutral zone and obviously we got the power-play goal off that, so that was huge for us. A little emotion in the game."
Kreider's power-play goal gave New York a 2-1 lead at 17:57.
"We gave up three or four shots in the last 40 minutes, you don't see that very often," Ruff said. "We probably had four or five good looks, and a couple we missed the net on, a couple he made good saves on. It just turned into [a] power-play game."
New Jersey outshot New York 6-1 in the second and 8-3 in the third period.
Justin Braun made it 3-1 at 3:55 of the third, his first goal with the Rangers since being acquired in a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers on March 21.
"At this time of the year, you can draw it up any way you want, we're looking for those two points to fight for home ice [in the playoffs]," Strome said. "We felt in control even when it wasn't pretty. That's a sign of a maturing team and a confident team."
