COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Devils can’t afford more clunkers like these if they want to make the playoffs.
Nick Foligno had his second career hat trick and added an assist to lead the Blue Jackets to a 6-1 victory over the Devils on Thursday night.
Brandon Saad, Brandon Dubinksy — playing his 600th career game — and Rene Bourque also scored, and Matt Calvert and William Karlsson each had three assists as the Blue Jackets improved to 8-2-3 in their last 13 games. Steady rookie Joonas Korpisalo made 25 saves and is 10-2-3 in his past 14 starts.
Reid Boucher scored for New Jersey, which lost for the fourth time in five games.
Seeking a career-high 27th win, Cory Schneider, who entered with a league low 2.06 goals-against-average, gave up three goals on 11 shots in the first period. He was replaced by Keith Kinkaid to start the second period and gave up three more goals on the 13 shots he faced.
Columbus jumped ahead 3-0 in the first period and never looked back with Foligno scoring twice early just under three minutes apart, benefitting from tenacious play of linemate Matt Calvert.
On the first score, Calvert hunted down the puck deep in the Devils’ zone and then fed Foligno, who scored his first in 15 games from the low slot at 5:20.
Then Calvert sped into the zone, spinning around a defender to get a shot on goal. Schneider pushed the puck into traffic with Foligno scoring on a bank shot off the goalie from the side of the net.
Calvert was at it again late in the period, dishing a long cross-ice pass to Saad in the right circle. Saad beat Schneider on a low shot with 47 seconds left with his career high-tying 23rd.
Boucher got the Devils on the board just 1:38 into the second period, converting a saucer pass from Travic Zajac at the back post giving the Devils some life. The Devils carried the momentum from there but they couldn’t beat Korpisalo, who was stout making a variety of difficult saves.
Joseph Blandisi almost pulled New Jersey within one with a little under eight minutes to go but the play was ruled dead before he poked the puck from under Korpisalo into the net.
“It was a factor in the game just in the sense that it would have been nice to have a goal at that point,” Devils coach John Hynes said. “If we have an honest assessment of it we weren’t ready to play in the first period and that was the biggest difference in the game.”
Columbus then struck with two more goals to make it 5-1. Foligno scored his third with 6 1/2 minutes to go in the middle period when his centering pass kicked off defenseman David Schlemko’s skate past Kinkaid for his ninth.
Five minutes later Dubinsky wristed a shot from the slot on the power play for his 17th on a nice behind-the-back pass from Foligno.
Bourque closed out the scoring on a breakaway with just over a minute left in the third.