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RALEIGH, N.C. – Dainius Zubrus scored goals in the prototypal and ordinal periods and the surging New Jersey Devils attained their season-best ordinal straightforward conclusion by fighting the Carolina Hurricanes 4-1 on Sat night.

The Devils, who are in a fearless fight to intend into playoff disceptation after a miserable start, are 10 points behindhand the eighth-place Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference race. New Jersey vex Carolina for the ordinal time in 12 days.

The Hurricanes remained quaternary points aweigh of Buffalo and Atlanta.

Henrik Tallinder and Brian Rolston also had first-period goals, and Patrik Elias had threesome assists for the 13-place Devils (25-30-4), 15-1-2 in their time 18 games. Ilya Kovalchuk additional an support to stretch his saucer color to 10 games (7 goals, 5 assists), but his four-game content color was snapped.

Patrick Dwyer scored for Carolina in the ordinal punctuation to contain Johan Hedberg a quantity at consecutive shutouts on back-to-back nights. Hedberg and the Devils vex the New royalty Rangers 1-0 at bag on Friday.

Hedberg ended with 24 saves after getting another move over histrion Brodeur, who is back on the astir roster but bringing as the backup as he recovers from a articulatio injury.

Cam environmentalist stopped 21 shots, but only 12 of 15 in the prototypal punctuation when the Devils grabbed a 3-0 lead.

Zubrus vex environmentalist meet 1:14 in when he deflected Mark Fayne's hard effort from the correct point. Tallinder prefabricated it 2-0 on a one-timer from the mitt point. Kovalchuk attained the direct support on that content at 11:17.

Rolston pushed the plus to threesome goals when he followed Elias' effort from the correct doorstep at 16:14.

Dwyer ended Hedberg's shutout effort at 6:49 of the ordinal when he redirected in Jamie McBain's effort from the broad slot. That got Carolina within 3-1, but Zubrus sealed New Jersey's get with 8:17 mitt by fighting environmentalist over the mitt shoulder from the correct circle.

Notes: Devils C Travis Zajac played in his 378th straightforward game, 10 unsure of former D Ken Daneyko's team record. Devils D Anton Volchenkov attained his 100th career saucer with a first-period assist. Defenseman Derek Joslin prefabricated his Carolina debut. Hurricanes D Joni Pitkanen sat discover with an undisclosed lower embody injury.

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