NEWARK–a Devils goal in the first minute by Lee Stempniak  enabled New Jersey to keep  Florida under their thumb in  a 4-2 win over the Panthers Sunday night. The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for Florida as the team was defeated for the first time in December, finishing their road trip 4-1-0.

Adam Henrique lead the way for the Devils with a goal and two assists, while Mike Cammalleri and Kyle Palmieri rounded out the scoring for New Jersey who scored four goals on 17 shots in what was a shaky game in net by Roberto Luongo. The Panthers could only beat Devils goalie Cory Schneider twice on 37 shots.

Probably most significant for Florida was reuniting the Jonathon Huberdeau,-Aleksander Barkov-Jaromir Jagr line, which accounted for goals by Huberedeau and Aaron Ekblad. Jagr had assists on both goals to snap a four-game pointless streak. The assists give Jagr 12 for the season and with eight goals put him at a team-leading 20 for the season.  Shift after shift the line dominated play for the first time since last season.

The full nhl.com review and video highlights can be seen here:

http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/recap?id=2015020400&navid=sb:recap&intcmpid=sb-highlights

Perhaps it was a return to New Jersey, where he played most of two seasons got Jagr in a comfort zone he hasn’t been in since the Nov. 27 game against the Islanders, which he left early in the third after a collision affected his mobility.

Whatever it was, Jagr’s two assists drew him to within 28 points of tying Gordie Howe as the NHL’s third all-time leading scorer.

A trip to New Jersey means a trip to a former NHL stop for Jagr. Earlier in the day Jagr spoke to reporters about his days in the KHL with Devils. The clip also includes comments by Sergey Kalinin who played with Jagr briefly for Omsk. In addition to some intersting comments, we also get a nice view of Jagr’s mullet regrowth progress.

It was a tough night for the Atlantic Division as Florida, Tampa Bay, Buffalo and Ottawa all lost while the rest of the division rested.

More from the lockerroom after the game:

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/hockey/devils-notes-jaromir-jagr-still-having-fun-1.1468917

Sunday’s game marked the 27th or approximate first third of the season. Over 82 games at their current pace the Panthers are looking at 90 points. However, if you like to believed they’ve slightly underachieved to this point, then the rest of the season should see them remain in the battle for second or third place in the division or one of the two wild card spots in the Eastern Conference. Florida sits fifth, among a cluster of five Atlantic Division teams within give points of each other for slots 2-6.

Florida returns home for games against Ottawa Tuesday and Washington Thursday. A four-game road trip starts Saturday in Boston to close out the week and continues next week with games against the New York Islanders, a rematch with the Devils and Carolina. The holiday season will be spend in South Florida with six  games per week culminating with weekend games Jan. 2 vs. the New York Rangers and Sunday, Jan. 3 vs. Minnesota. Tickets for all Panthers home games can be secured at http://www.floridapanthers.com. The team is offering some great packages. Reasonable prices (and the beach) make it worth traveling to Florida to see them play.

In other Jagr news, the Traveling Jagrs have yet to announce their appearance schedule for this season, but they do have some news, relayed by Rangers Jagr:

Tylor Keller ‏@Tylorkeller Dec 4

The search for the Kladno Travelling Jagr begins today! Thanks for sending us this package. @RytiriKladno @68Jagr