This highly anticipated clash of momentum-driven teams delivered a thrilling 4-3 overtime contest, but the New Jersey Devils ultimately prevailed over the Chicago Blackhawks. The victory was secured spectacularly by Devils defenseman Simon Nemec, who delivered a stunning hat trick—a rare feat for a blueliner—completing the performance with the game-winning goal at 3:28 of the extra frame. While the hard-fought loss put an end to the Blackhawks’ impressive three-game winning streak, Chicago earned a critical point thanks to their star, Connor Bedard, who opened the scoring with a power-play goal in the first period. The Devils’ offense was fueled by the passing of Jack Hughes, who recorded two key assists on the night, making a decisive difference in the visitors’ high-scoring effort.
Gritsyuk – Hughes – Mercer
Meier – Hischier – Bratt
Palat – Glass – Noesen
Cotter – Glendening – MacEwen
Siegenthaler – Nemec
Dillon – Hughes
Markstrom
Allen
Bertuzzi – Bedard – Moore
Mikheyev – Greene – Teravainen
Slaggert – Foligno – Lafferty
Dach – Donato
Vlasic – Crevier
Kaiser – Levshunov
Rinzel
Knight
Late into the first period, Connor Bedard opened the scoring 1-0, extending his point streak to nine games with 1:25 left to play in the first. He scored on a 5-on-3 power play when Tyler Bertuzzi, who was on the right side of the net, passed to Bedard, who was outside of the left circle. Bedard passed it across to Teuvo Teravainen, who sent a cross-ice pass to Bedard from the right for a gorgeous one-timer from the left face-off circle.
Simon Nemec found the back of the net to tie it 1-1 with 15 seconds to go in the middle frame after Nico Hischier drove through the Blackhawks’ zone. Nemec went after him and took Hischier’s drop pass, moved through the slot, and scored a backhanded goal on Spencer Knight. In the second period, the Devils outshot the Blackhawks 14-3. In the second period, Knight saved on two breakaways, denying both Jack Hughes and Hischier.
Landon Slaggert put Chicago back in front 2-1 when he put in his first goal of the season past Jacob Markstrom at 16:55 in the third period when Nick Foligno, who was up in the right corner, sent the puck down to Louis Crevier, who fired from the right point, and Slaggert tipped it in. With a one-timer from the left circle, Dawson Mercer scored his ninth goal of the season at 9:47, tying it back up 2-2 when he took a cross-ice pass from Jack Hughes and went on to score short side while falling to one knee. Sam Lafferty put the Blackhawks ahead 3-2 at 6:26, recording his first goal of the season when he went across the slot, scoring on a backhand after moving into the offensive zone, then dodging Luke Hughes while going across the slot. Nemec picked up his second of the night, knotting it back up 3-3 with 3:46 left to go of regulation when he took a cross-ice pass from Stefan Noesen, tapping it in at the left post to go into overtime.
With 1:32 remaining in overtime, Nemec finished his hat trick to get the 4-3 win for New Jersey after taking a stretch pass from Markstrom and moving into the zone, beating Knight on the glove side.
Simon Nemec on his hat trick, what he liked most about the Devils playing without two forwards/how they approached it, and Jack’s pass to set up Nemec’s second goal: “Unreal. I mean, like, that was probably my first hat trick in my career… I was never like a shooter or scoring guy, so yeah, I’m glad for that, but obviously, great team win. We were down like 3 times, I think, and we won, so it’s good.” – “We got great players, and it was really hard for the forwards, but they did a great job. It wasn’t an easy game, like you know, they’re a fast team, but I think we did overall a great job. …That was unreal. That’s just Jack. Just give him the puck and he finds you, or me, or someone. When he’s open, you always want to give him a puck.”
– Jack Hughes picked up a pair of assists. …Both Nick Foligno and Louis Crevier collected two assists.
– Connor Bedard’s game-opening goal extended his goal-scoring streak to four games and his point streak to nine; 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists), which ties his career long, set last season.
– Jacob Markstrom made a total of 17 saves for New Jersey, and Spencer Knight made a total of 33 saves for Chicago.
– The Devils are 12-4-1, having won three of their past four. Each of those games went into overtime.
– Dating back to the 2022-23 season, the Devils have won seven straight against the Blackhawks.
– The Blackhawks are 8-5-4 and have won three straight.
– Simon Nemec is the eighth defenseman in League history to cap a regular-season hat trick with an overtime goal. He’s the first since Jakob Chychrun (April 4, 2021). Nemec, who’s 21, is the youngest to do so, besting Chychrun (23 years, four days).
– Landon Slaggert was recalled from Rockford of the AHL earlier in the day, taking the spot of Andre Burakovsky, who missed the game due to an undisclosed injury.
– Ryan Donato skated in his 500th NHL career game.
– New Jersey played most of the game without both Zack MacEwen and Cody Glass. MacEwen took a hit in the first from Connor Murphy and did not return… he had just missed 13 straight games with an upper-body injury before making a return to the Devils’ lineup on Monday to play against the New York Islanders. Glass went into the boards in the final minute of the first, returned for the second period, but ended up leaving for the locker room again after a shift.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have had many a pleasant surprise over their first 17 games. They’ve gotten a lot of life out of mid-level free agent signings like Justin Brazeau, Anthony Mantha and Parker Wotherspoon. Arturs Silovs has looked the part of an NHL goalie. Tristan Jarry and even Ryan Graves have started upon redemption journeys, no matter how modest or long-lasting they might be. Evgeni Malkin has seemingly turned back the hands of time. Erik Karlsson is playing like he has something to prove. Sidney Crosby is, well, you can’t be too surprised that he’s still the best player on the ice most nights but at 38 it’s still something to see.
The progression of Ben Kindel, however, is arguably their finest and most pleasant surprise of all so far. No one had him even close to the NHL radar in 2025-26 (though, hey, at least we were able to raise the possibility of the unexpected)
Those seven other forwards who fit in the category are Zach Benson, Cole Sillinger, Ryan O’Reilly, Patrice Bergeron, Dustin Brown, Justin Williams and Sykora. Of those, only the first two have had their rookie seasons in the last 15 years.
Not only is Kindel making it, he’s excelling. It’s early, small sample, blah blah but Kindel has stepped right in and looked the part of a player who can drive his own line and now has stepped up to the first line to play on the wing. Kindel’s two-way play was touted coming out of the WHL just as much as his ability to produce points and that has been the case thus far in his first 15 NHL games.
Of the others, here are some stat lines for their rookie years:
These players, of course, were far from finished products even though it is rare to even show enough to stick in the NHL from this age without being a top-10 draft pick. One commonality amongst these players seems to be a defensive conscious, Beregron won six Selke trophies in his career, O’Reilly has won the award once. Brown and Sykora picked up Selke votes in their careers and were known as reliable players off the puck, as was Williams. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Kindel joins them to at least find his name on Selke ballots in the future if he eventually grows into a penalty killing center as his career blossoms. That makes sense on the surface level, if a young player is going to make it right off the bat they have to instantly create some trust away from the puck and demonstrate a good compete and detail level to their game beyond their young age.
As the stats above show, there’s a lot more offensive upside for the players to find. Most of the rookies ended up in the 25-30ish point range as draft+1 NHLers and almost all of them eventually found their game grow into being 60+ players (including Benson, who got to 60 in his second season). That hasn’t always been the case — Sillinger has no more than 33 points over his four NHL seasons and may never reach the levels that just about everyone else did but the track record there is fairly strong and shows a clear path about a promising future is ahead for young Kindel.
Of course, one doesn’t need this article to realize all of that, the eye test is showing in spades the impressiveness in Kindel’s game. It was only a month ago when the Pens’ coaches had a plan to cycle Kindel out as a healthy scratch at times to keep him from getting overloaded. Plans can change, Kindel has played the last eight games in a row and more all the time (scoring five points and averaging 16:30 per game while playing more minutes each game in the last four games than he played in all of his first 11). The scratches have gone away because there hasn’t been a need lately to give him time off.
Kindel has been able to handle what the Pens have asked, whether that’s been centering his own line or now moving up to play wing with Crosby. For someone drafted outside of the top-10 and won’t turn 19 until after the regular season ends that could be the biggest and best surprise of them all this season in Pittsburgh.