CHICAGO, IL—The New Jersey Devils jumped out to an early two-goal lead on the Chicago Blackhawks by the 6:50 mark of the opening period and never looked back or conceded their lead.

New Jersey began its road trip with a 5-3 victory against Chicago, backstopped by Jacob Markstrom who made 21 saves on 25 shots.

Nathan Bastian, in his return to the lineup, scored the opening goal of the game, left alone by Spencer Knight’s left post after a coverage miscommunication between Blackhawk players Artyom Levshunov and Wyatt Kaiser, snapped a shot into an wide-open net for the early Devils lead.

“You get taken out of the lineup just because you’re flat out not playing well enough, so it’s unfortunate, but it kind of gives you a chance to reset, and sometimes guys need that, and they don’t know that they need that,” Bastian said. “I felt a little more jump today, I was excited to play. It was really nice to make the most of it.”

Timo Meier promptly doubled the Devils lead, taking a whack at the puck on Dawson Mercer’s goal-line drive to the net, popping the puck past Knight for a 2-0 lead just 6:50 into the game.

While the Blackhawks responded with a goal by Tyler Bertuzzi in the first, the Devils took the 2-1 lead into second period.

Ondrej Palat took advantage of what looked like a sloppy Blackhawks power play at 3:14 of the 2nd, tallying his 14th goal of the season and first shorthanded goal since 2019 with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Devils and Hawks traded two more goals, one from Blackhawk Ilya Mikheyev to cut the Devils lead to 3-2, before Dawson Mercer doubled up the lead at 4-2 with a lethal-looking wrist shot on the power play.

The Blackhawks got within one goal when Frank Nazar put the puck past Markstrom, while Chicago had an empty net in place of the extra attacker.

Chicago would pull Knight a second time, after Nazar’s goal, but New Jersey sealed the victory with Stefan Noesen’s 20th goal of the season, hitting the 20 goal mark for the first time in his career.

The Devils travel to Winnipeg next to take on the Jets on Friday night.