Utica

A little shuffle, a little spark and a lot of shots Thursday night, and the Albany Devils are moving on in the American Hockey League playoffs.

Matt Lorito and Joseph Blandisi scored 13 seconds apart early in the game, setting a tone for the Devils' 6-3 series-clinching victory over the Utica Comets.

Albany won the best-of-five opening-round scrum 3-1, marking the first time that a New Jersey Devils' affiliate has won an AHL series since the 1998 Albany River Rats.

"Every game, that's the plan," rookie forward Blake Pietila said of the fast start. "Tonight we came out extra hard and executed what we were trying to do."

The Devils advanced to the Calder Cup quarterfinals against the Toronto Marlies, who finished an opening-round sweep of Bridgeport with a 6-4 victory Thursday night. The series will begin next week in Toronto, although the schedule won't be announced until Friday.

Pietila, playing for the first time in the series, contributed two goals and two assists. The Devils never led by fewer than two goals after their early blitz in the opening 4:06.

"I don't know that we could have planned it that well," Devils coach Rick Kowalsky said. "We were jumping. We talked about trying to dictate the play early, and we did. We forced some turnovers and capitalized and got off to a great start."

Pietila was put on the top line with Blandisi and Mike Sislo. Nick Lappin was reunited with Lorito, his former college teammate, and that paid off.

Lappin stole the puck and fed Lorito for the first goal. Moments later, Pietila set up Blandisi in front, quickly deflating the sellout crowd of 3,860.

"I don't know if everyone was expecting how loud the crowd was going to be (for Game 3)," Blandisi said. "Maybe it took us by shock. Tonight we knew what to expect. We knew we had to suck the energy out of the building as quick as we could, and we stuck to the game plan and it paid off for us."

Blandisi fed Sislo on a 2-on-1 break at 11:02 of the first to make it a three-goal game. Goaltender Scott Wedgewood, who played the entire series, has not given up more than three goals in any game this season, and he weathered the Comets' comeback effort.

"We threw some pucks away that were uncharacteristic of our group," Utica coach Travis Green said. "Give them credit, though. They came hard. ... It is tough when down 3-0 early. It took some wind out of our sails."

Every time the Comets tried to respond, the Devils had an answer.

Utica had a 4-minute, 20-second power play — including 1:40 of 5-on-3 — in the second period but couldn't score. Five seconds after the Devils returned to full strength, Reid Boucher jumped on a turnover to make it 4-0.

"I thought our pressure up ice, our pressure on the forecheck caused a lot of turnovers," Kowalsky said.

The Comets got their first goal with 3:27 to play in the second and had a late-period power play, but Pietila stemmed that with a short-handed goal 29.1 seconds before the buzzer.

"Once the momentum gets going, everyone starts rolling with it," Pietila said. "That's a big part of playoff hockey, the momentum swings and the ups and downs."

Utica got its fans involved by scoring twice in the first half of the third period, closing the deficit to 5-3 and forcing Kowalsky into a timeout.

"It was just to calm everyone down, regroup," Pietila said. "They got rolling a little there, and once the building lights up, they feed off it."

Pietila punched Albany's ticket to the next round with an empty-net goal with 2:17 remaining.

"Give their team credit," Green said, "They played a hell of a game."

pdougherty@timesunion.com • 518-454-5416 • @Pete_Dougherty