After jumping out to a 1-0 lead on a first-period goal from Jim O’Brien, the Albany Devils added four more in the third on their way to a 5-0 victory over the Rochester Americans Friday in the regular season home finale at The Blue Cross Arena. 
Ryan Kujawinski (1+1) and Vojtech Mozik (0+2) led the Devils with two points each while Ben Thomson, Joseph Blandisi and Pavel Zacha rounded out the scoring for the Albany. Yann Danis stopped all 27 shots he faced to pick up his 28th win of the season while earning his eighth shutout of the year.
Tim Schaller returned to the lineup after the missing the last 15 games due to injury and finished with a team-high three shots. Linus Ullmark made 38 saves in the losing effort.
O’Brien scored the lone goal of the first period to put the Devils on the board at 12:29 into the contest. On the 2-on-1 advantage, O’Brien kept the puck and skated hard along the far right board, fighting off contact until he snuck a wrister inside the far left post. The goal, O’Brien’s 19th of the year, was assisted by Kujawinski.
Rochester’s offense created multiple opportunities to tie the game up during the second period, but each attempt came up just short. The string of unlucky attempts began after Schaller’s shot went wide of the net on a 2-on-1 opportunity. Only moments later on a 3-on-2, some impressive tic-tac-toe passing by Rochester’s shooter set up a scoring chance, but again the puck slide just outside of the post.
A four-goal third period was kicked off just 29 seconds in after Kujawinski bested Ullmark to bring the Devils advantage to a pair. Five minutes later, Thomson scored after his quick-release from in front zipped by a screened Ullmark and bounced in off the left post.
Blandisi added to the scoring frenzy after be tapped in Mozik’s rebound before Zacha, the New Jersey Devils’ sixth-overall pick in last year’s NHL Draft, closed out the night with the fifth and final goal.
With Amerks game report
