Devils 3, Bruins 2

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) - Alexander Mogilny was nearly knocked out of the game by a hard shoulder check from Boston defenseman Nick Boynton early in the third period.

After a brief trip to the locker room, Mogilny returned to score the winning goal with 32 seconds remaining to lead the New Jersey Devils to a 3-2 victory over the Bruins on Tuesday night.

``He's done that before,'' Devils coach Larry Robinson said. ``The first indication was that he was through for the game. We made our line switches but the next thing you know, there he was.''

With the game seemingly headed to overtime, John Madden won a faceoff in the Bruins end from Joe Thornton and drew the puck back to Mogilny, who whipped a shot past Andrew Raycroft.

``Basically, I want to try and hit the net,'' Mogilny said. ``You don't want to get greedy. You want to put the puck through. A lot times when you try to get cute, nothing happens.''

As the play unfolded, Raycroft struggled to find the puck.

``They won it back and there were two or three guys there and you can't see,'' he said. ``He took dead aim and it went right through.''

Brian Gionta extended his goal-scoring streak to five games, Jay Pandolfo had the other goal and Martin Brodeur made 21 saves as the Devils won their third straight game and sixth in the last eight.

Patrice Bergeron and Sergei Samsonsov scored for the Bruins, who lost their third straight and ninth in 10 games.

``If we had been playing better right from the start, we might be able to absorb loses like this,'' Bruins defenseman Brian Leetch said. ``We need the points and these kind of games are killers for us.''

Bergeron scored the only goal of the first period, on a power play at 8:49. Samsonov stretched the Bruins' lead to 2-0 only 30 seconds into the second period, beating Brodeur after Devils defenseman Richard Matvichuk knocked Thornton into the Devils' goalie.

The Devils outshot the Bruins 17-4 the rest of the period, and finally broke through against Raycroft when Gionta scored at 13:14. It was his team-leading 16th goal of the season, and 11th in the last 12 games.

New Jersey pulled even 5:27 into the third period as Pandolfo knocked in the rebound of Madden's shot past Raycroft.

Notes: Defenseman Vladimir Malakhov, who left practice early Monday because he was ill, missed the game for the Devils. Sean Brown, scratched the two previous games, took his place. ... New Jersey's Jamie Langenbrunner played in his 600th game, and Brian Rafalski in his 400th. ... Bruins winger Glen Murray missed his third straight game with a groin strain.