Devils Down Rangers In Explosive Atlantic Clash

Each teams starting goalie went the distance, with New Jersey netminder Scott Clemmensen recording 31 saves to Henrik Lundqvist`s 26.

The New Jersey Devils thumped the New York Rangers 8-5 in an explosive Atlantic Division contest on Friday.

Patrik Elias scored the go-ahead goal with 8:31 remaining before Brian Gionta and Jamie Langenbrunner put the Devils out of reach with goals two minutes apart to help New Jersey notch their fourth straight win and first over the Rangers this season.

"This team has shown me a lot over the past six weeks," Devils head coach Brent Sutter told reporters.

"Tonight was just another fact of resiliency. We didn't get too caught up on what was going on, we just continued to play."

The Atlantic Division-leading Rangers, who came into the contest struggling on offense, scored four unanswered goals to tie the game at 5-5.

Nikolai Zherdev and Scott Gomez scored in the second period, while Paul Mara and Ryan Callahan produced goals in the third to draw New York even.

Each teams starting goalie went the distance, with New Jersey netminder Scott Clemmensen recording 31 saves to Henrik Lundqvist's 26.

"Eight goals for a goalie is not a lot of fun," Lundqvist said. "We had some problems in our own zone obviously, and they found a lot of openings. We made it pretty easy for them."

New York (19-11-2) had convincingly controlled New Jersey in its previous two meetings, but Travis Zajac scored two goals to help the Devils jump out to a 5-1 advantage by the middle of the second period.

Jay Pandolfo, Johnny Oduya and Dainius Zubrus also got in on the act giving the Devils seven different goal scorers.

Zach Parise had four assists and Gionta added three for New Jersey, who had their first eight-goal game since 2004.

With the victory, the Devils (16-8-2) closed to within six points of the division lead.