NHL

Devils fall to Canadiens

The Devils honored former goaltending coach Jacques Caron in a pregame ceremony, but that wasn’t their problem.

It was the lack of offense that doomed the Devils in their 2-1 loss to the Canadiens last night at the Prudential Center.

Johan Hedberg had another strong outing, stopping 20 shots for the Devils, but his teammates did him no favors, scoring one goal for the second consecutive night.

“We were playing a solid team,” Hedberg said. “They were very tight. It’s hard to get any good chances at them. “Figured that [this] was [going to be] one of those games that was going to come down to one goal, one bounce here and there.”

That bounce came in the third period after a Devils turnover in their own end when Tomas Plekanec redirected a shot by Jarred Tinordi for the game-winner.

“It’s a tough one to swallow, but their goalie played well,” said Ilya Kovalchuk, who had the Devils’ best chance to score the go-ahead goal after his shorthanded shot hit the crossbar in the second period. “We couldn’t get a couple of goals.”

The Devils dominated large parts of the game, firing 33 shots on Carey Price, but the Canadiens goalie was up to the task, making 32 saves. He allowed Peter Harrold’s first of the season that tied the game at 1-1 in the second period.

Harrold left the game dripping blood in the third after getting hit in the visor by an Andrei Markov shot, but later returned after getting stitches in his forehead.

Colby Armstong gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead halfway through the first period. It was the 11th time in the past 13 games the Devils’ opponent scored first, a big reason why the team is 4-9 during that stretch.

Despite the loss, coach Pete DeBoer said he liked his team’s effort.

“I don’t think I could ask more of our group considering it was our third game in four nights,” he said. “To come back, with Montreal sitting here rested and waiting for us, I thought the guys really emptied the tank and gave us what they had.”

The Canadiens tied the Penguins for first place in the Eastern Conference, and the Devils fell into a sixth-place tie with the Maple Leafs.