New Jersey Devils Luke Glendening (left) and the San Jose Sharks Alexander Wennberg (right) battle for the puck in the first period at the Prudential Center in Newark NJ on Fri Oct 24, 2025 (AP News photo)

By Jessica Kwong

NEWARK, NJ. — Coming off their first victory of the season at Madison Square Garden, the San Jose Sharks were unable to get a winning streak going and fell 3-1 to the New Jersey Devils (7-1-0) at Prudential Center on Friday night.

The Sharks had two penalties in the first period and three penalties in the second period.

“Too many penalties, is the name of the game,” said Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky.

Sharks left wing Jeff Skinner, who had a penalty 7:21 into the second period for hooking Devils right wing Dawson Mercer, said “we just didn’t gain the momentum back”.

San Jose scored the first goal of the game, as they did in their last couple of matches against New York-area teams. Left wing William Eklund made a power play goal assisted by Macklin Celebrini at 2:25 into the first period.

New Jersey attacked in the second period, with defenseman Fougie Hamilton making a power play goal assisted by Mercer and center Nico Hischier 40 seconds in to tie the game. Then Hamilton made a power play goal of his own assisted by defenseman Luke Hughes and Hischier at 9:08 to put the Devils up 2-1.

The Sharks held without a shot in the second but were down only 2-1 thanks to goalie Yaroslav Askarov.

In the third period, right wing Connor Brown made an empty-net goal assisted by Hamilton at 19:13 to beat the Sharks 3-1.

Eklund echoed the remarks of Warsofsky and Skinner on what went wrong in the game.

“That’s what happens in PK you know, they get more chances than we had in the power play and we fell out of the momentum a little bit,” said Eklund.

Askarov said: “A tough second, but overall it was a good game for us.”

The Sharks (1-5-2) are 1-3 in their road trip so far, taking a 4-3 loss to the New York Islanders on Tuesday and earning a 6-5 overtime win against the New York Rangers on Thursday.

They continue their road trip on Sunday against the Minnesota Wild (3-4-1) at Xcel Energy Center. The puck drops at 3 p.m. PT.