Mercer gets 1st hat trick, Devils cruise past Penguins

Dawson Mercer scored his first NHL hat trick, and the New Jersey Devils defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday.

Dougie Hamilton had a goal and an assist, Nico Hischier had two assists, and Vitek Vanecek made 22 saves for the Devils (49-21-8), who have won three of four and swept the four-game season series against the Penguins, outscoring them 16-6.
New Jersey remained three points behind the Carolina Hurricanes for first place in the Metropolitan Division. Carolina defeated the Ottawa Senators 3-2 in overtime on Tuesday.
"We'd love to be here in front of our fans, start at home (in the Stanley Cup Playoffs)," Devils coach Lindy Ruff said. "Take it one game at a time and hopefully we can secure that spot. The destiny is in our hands, which is something I feel is important."
Bryan Rust scored for the third straight game, and Tristan Jarry made 32 saves for the Penguins (38-30-10), who have alternated wins and losses in their past nine games (4-5-0).
Pittsburgh fell one point behind the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders for the two wild cards into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference. Florida moved into a wild card spot with a 2-1 win against the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.
"We're looking at the game right in front of us," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. "We're disappointed tonight. We didn't get the result. We didn't play well enough. We got outplayed. All we can do is figure out what we can take from it and try to apply it to the next game. … We're going to have to stay in the fight here. We're still in it."

Hamilton put New Jersey ahead 1-0 at 8:58 of the first period, scoring on a one-timer from the top of the right face-off circle off a pass from Ondrej Palat.
Mercer made it 2-0 at 14:23, finishing a pass from Hischier past the extended left pad of Jarry on a 2-on-1.
Timo Meier pushed the lead to 3-0 at 2:54 of the second period when he tapped in a backdoor pass from Jack Hughes at the left post during a 5-on-3 power play.
Mercer then made it 4-0 at 19:26. Jarry couldn't cover the rebound of John Marino's point shot, allowing Mercer to swipe the loose puck into the open net after winning a battle with Kris Letang at the edge of the crease.
"He's just got, like, sneaky skill," Marino said of Mercer. "Little things that might go unnoticed, whether it's a board play or being strong in front of the net, like he was tonight. It might not look it sometimes, but he's got that sneaky skill. He's been great."
The Devils outshot the Penguins 18-6 in the second.
"I think in the second we had some chances to get ourselves back into it," Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby said. "I think we've done some pretty good things. I think there's games where we felt like we could've at least grabbed a point, if not two."
Mercer completed the hat trick to extend the lead to 5-0 at 2:52 of the third. After Jarry slid out of position while making a save on Michael McLeod, Hischier quickly got the rebound and sent a spinning pass to Mercer for a shot into a wide-open net.
"It was a great feeling," Mercer said. "I knew going into the third I had two there. The guys were saying, 'Go get another one. Get another one.'"

Rust redirected in a shot from Pierre-Olivier Joseph to cut it to 5-1 at 6:14.
"It's obviously not good," Rust said. "This game wasn't good enough. We weren't good enough in a lot of areas of the game. I think the scoreboard reflected that."
NOTES: Mercer (21 years, 159 days) is the fourth player in Devils history to score a hat trick at the age of 21 or younger, joining Hughes (21 years, 196 days), Scott Gomez (20 years, 3 days), and Bobby Holik (21 years, 283 days). … Crosby remained three points shy of 1,500 in the NHL. … Devils forward Nathan Bastian had two shots, three hits and one block in 12:09 of ice time in his return after missing 11 games with an upper-body injury. … Meier has three goals in his past four games.