Devils Blast Canadiens

The New Jersey Devils are one win from matching the NHL record of 27 road victories set twice by the Montreal Canadiens' dynasty of the late 1970s.

They picked up road win No. 26 Saturday night without breaking much of a sweat in a 6-2 victory over the Canadiens.

"We're at 26 and there's no question we want it," New Jersey's Scott Stevens said. "It won't hurt us for the playoffs to go after it. We're playing good hockey now and we've having fun out there, so we'll definitely go after it."

The Devils can tie the record with a win in Buffalo on Wednesday night or in their final game, in Nashville on April 17.

The record of 27 road wins was set by Montreal in 1976-77 and the Canadiens matched it the next season. The current Canadiens, already out of the playoffs, did little to slow the Devils' progress.

Brian Rolston and Patrick Elias each scored two goals and New Jersey took a 3-0 lead in the opening 11:37 before Montreal even got a shot on goal.

Lyle Odelein and Peter Sykora also scored for the Devils, who are 8-2-2 in their last 12 games and only two points behind Ottawa, which tied Buffalo 1-1, for first place in the Eastern Conference.

"The only scoreboard we were watching was the one in the middle of the rink here," Devils coach Robbie Ftorek said of the race for first place. "It doesn't matter what Ottawa does if we don't win here."

Scott Thornton and Turner Stevenson scored for Montreal.

"We knew it would be tough going," Montreal forward Brian Savage said. "We wanted to play a 2-1 or 3-2 type of game tight checking."

"But obviously, everybody didn't come out to play tonight and we'd better fix that in our last three games."

New Jersey is 26-10-3 on the road, but only 18-13-8 at home. The 1976-77 Canadiens lost only eight games all season while the following year, they lost 10. Those were thmiddle seasons of four straight Stanley Cup championships.

"Obviously, those were great teams," Stevens said. "I don't know if it's harder in this day and age than then."

"There's no easy games now. It might be special to tie or beat that record."

Rolston's bullet shot on a rush down the left side 3:28 into the second period chased goaltender Jose Theodore, who stopped 13 of 17 shots, in favor of backup Fred Chabot, who stopped 12 of 14.

The Canadiens, who managed 28 shots at Martin Brodeur, were behind early when Elias picked off a pass by Eric Weinrich and broke in alone to score 37 seconds into the game.

Rolston beat Theodore with a screened shot at 5:45 and Sykora worked a give-and-go with Jason Arnott for his 28th goal at 11:37.

Thornton scored on a power play with 22 seconds left in the first period, but after Rolston's second of the game and Odelein's tip-in of a rebound by Bob Carpenter at 6:31, the rout was back on.

"We're controlling the puck and that's important," Stevens said. "It's an easier game when you have the puck."

"That's a big part of our success right now."

Elias got his second goal 53 seconds into the third period and Stevenson one-handed a shot over Brodeur at 5:06.

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