LOWELL, Mass. – Jeff Frazee made 28 saves for his first victory of the season, Nathan Perkovich led the offense with a goal and an assist, and the Lowell Devils shut down the Providence Bruins, 3-0, on Saturday night at the Tsongas Arena. Despite playing without Tim Sestito, the team’s leading scorer who was recalled by New Jersey (NHL) earlier on Saturday, the Devils found their scoring touch with a pair of strikes late in the first period. At 17:38, Ben Walter buried a hard low wrister to stake the Devils to a 1-0 lead. Perkovich and Vladimir Zharkov recorded assists on the tally. Then, just over a minute later, Patrick Davis jumped on a loose puck and drove hard around the back of the net before stuffing a wrap-around past Bruins netminder Matt Dalton to put the visitors in a 2-0 hole heading to intermission. Providence outshot the Devils in the first frame, but Frazee was up to the task – stopping all twelve Bruins shots on net. Although the second period saw plenty of back and forth offensive action, both teams skated to a scoreless twenty minutes of play. The Devils’ forecheck kept the pressure on in the attacking zone, resulting in numerous scoring chances on Dalton. Nick Palmieri nearly scored for the second night in a row when he scooped up a Providence turnover in their own zone and had a point blank chance that Dalton pushed aside. Neither team was assessed a penalty in the middle frame. Just 4:12 into the third period, the Devils struck again thanks to a 2-on-1 goal by Perkovich; the second goal of his rookie season. Zharkov recorded his second assist of the game on the goal when he took a feed from Matt Corrente and laid a tape-to-tape pass across the slot that Perkovich one-timed past Dalton. Frazee made nine more saves in the third period to record the fifth shutout of his Devils career, and the third recorded by Lowell this season. The Devils play their third game in three days when they travel to Bridgeport for a 4:00 p.m. showdown with the Sound Tigers. This will be the third meeting of the season between the two Atlantic Division rivals. Bridgeport captured a 4-3 overtime win on October 3, but the Devils responded with a 4-0 blanking of the Sound Tigers on October 20. Listen to all the action live online by logging onto ahllive.com. – devils – |
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