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New Jersey Devils left wing Jesper Bratt celebrates his game winning goal in overtime against the Montreal Canadiens (Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images)

3 Takeaways from Devils’ Thrilling Overtime Win Over Canadiens

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers | By Daniel Amoia | Last updated Nov 6, 2025 10:52 PM ET

The New Jersey Devils headed into Thursday evening’s contest with a tall task against the surging Montreal Canadiens. With their backs against the wall, Jesper Bratt capped off a ferocious comeback to win 4-3 in overtime, handing Montreal netminder Jakub Dobes his first loss of the season.

Exciting Matchup…& the Home Crowd Loved It.

Coming into the night, these two squads were the top two teams in the Eastern Conference. Through just a single period, it was easy to see why.

The margin for error was extremely thin, as both have a multitude of players who possess elite speed, phenomenal edgework, and silky finesse. It was as close to a playoff pace as you could possibly get in early November.

To add to it, the crowd was trading dueling “Go Habs Go” and “Let’s Go Devils” chants all night. As the Devils got the last laugh with Bratt’s goal, the crowd erupted as the Devils improved to 6-0-0 at The Rock.

“You obviously feed off the crowd, and [as a team] you want to get them involved and feel the energy. That definitely helps,” said Devils’ forward Timo Meier. “We want to be a team where, if you come into this building, you know it’s going to be a hard night.”

Roller Coaster for Markstrom

Coming into the night, nobody was likely more frustrated at Jacob Markstrom’s .875 save percentage (SV%) than himself. It only added to the frustration when the flukiest goal you’ll maybe ever see happened on the Canadiens’ very first shot. Just watch this. When it rains, it pours:

Exactement comme on l'avait calculé

Textbook, and totally intentional#GoHabs pic.twitter.com/dDyVKFYVYa
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 7, 2025

But Markstrom bounced back very nicely at first, making a few key high danger stops including a breakaway by Cole Caufield. After two, the Devils led 2-1 on the heels of Markstrom stopping 0.97 goals above expected, according to Moneypuck.

But just 59 seconds into the third period, a quick shot from Jake Evans found its’ way past Markstrom, who was clearly fooled. Moneypuck says the shot had just a 2.4% chance of being a goal.

“The first one…I don’t even know how it went in. The second one obviously can’t go in,” said head coach Sheldon Keefe.

The rough goal against had announcer Bryan Mudryk on the Canadiens’ TSN broadcast imploring the Habs to “shoot everything at Markstrom at this point”. And they did: about nine and a half minutes later, Markstrom left a juicy rebound following an Alex Newhook snap shot and Oliver Kapanen buried it.

But later in the third, Markstrom came up with a couple key stops to keep the deficit to one, allowing them to ignite a comeback. When all was said and done, he finished stopping just 16 of 19 (.842%)…but if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt for the very flukey first goal, his numbers would be 16 of 18 (.889%) with +0.45 goals saved above expected. That’s definitely something to build off of.

Some Defensive Improvement

Coming in, head coach Sheldon Keefe had been pretty hard on the Devils’ defense, often chastising their recent effort and consistency. Over their previous five, they had averaged 13.2 high danger chances against and 29.2 overall scoring chances against. (via Natural Stat Trick)

Tonight, even after losing Dougie Hamilton to injury (more on that below), they remained committed and the results showed. They allowed seven high danger chances — a 47% decrease from their previous rough stretch. Their 16 overall scoring chances against was also a 45% decrease. While they still could’ve been better: it’s a step in the right direction.

“We did a lot of really good things that put us in position to win the game [but] a couple mistakes on goals two and three that open the door to the opposition,” said Keefe. “I don’t like how we made those mistakes but obviously getting the points is really important.”

Dougie Hamilton Injury

As Ryan Novozinsky reported postgame, it’s a lower body injury for Dougie Hamilton, who did not play most of the second and all of the third. Keefe said he’ll be evaluated tomorrow.