Matt Murray made 32 saves, and Connor Brown and Nick Paul each had a goal and an assist as the host Ottawa Senators defeated the slumping New Jersey Devils 4-1 on Monday night.
Brown had his fourth multiple-point game of the season in his return after missing 10 games because of a broken jaw.
Nick Holden and Adam Gaudette scored nine seconds apart in the second period to put Ottawa ahead 3-1. Brown, who set up Nick Paul’s tying goal at 16:51 of the first period, capped the scoring at 11:58 of the third with his sixth goal of the season. Paul had the primary assist.
The Devils have lost seven in a row and are 1-10-0 in their past 11 games, a slide that has dropped them into last place in the Metropolitan Division.
New Jersey outshot Ottawa 33-24, but Murray allowed only a first-period goal by Devils captain Nico Hischier and improved to 5-0-2 in his last seven games. His biggest save came in the final minute of the second period, when he robbed Yegor Sharangovich.
Hischier put the Devils ahead 1-0 when he scored a power-play goal at 11:48 of the first period. He ended a personal six-game points drought by redirecting a shot past Murray for his ninth goal of the season.
But the Senators scored four unanswered goals, continuing New Jersey’s struggles when playing with a lead. The Devils are 9-10-3 when scoring first this season, one of the worst records in the NHL.
Ottawa tied the game with 3:09 remaining in the opening period when Brown sent a pass from behind the net to Paul, who beat Nico Daws for his ninth goal of the season. Holden scored his third of the season at 7:54 of the second period to put Ottawa ahead to stay, and Gaudette got his fourth at 8:03 to put Ottawa up by two goals.
Daws, a rookie who was called up from Utica of the American Hockey League on Friday and was playing in his third NHL game, made 20 saves.
In addition to Brown’s return, the Senators also welcomed back defenseman Nikita Zaitsev, who missed 13 games with a heel injury, and forward Dylan Gambrell, who missed four games because of an upper-body injury.