It is abundantly clear that the New Jersey Devils are not a good hockey team. Despite that eight-game winning streak at the beginning of the season, the Devils are stuck in the mushy middle. And maybe this is the type of team President and General Manager Tom Fitzgerald has created. An average hockey team that caught teams by surprise in 2022-23 and 2024-25.
While it is easy to pile on and look for the negative in any situation, if you are watching the games and being honest with yourself, the Devils don’t have the horses to compete night to night. Whether you want to point to Sheldon Keefe‘s system, even though he continues to defend it, something is off with this version of the New Jersey Devils.
Trade Talks Have Cooled Involving Dougie Hamilton and the New Jersey Devils
Reality is that expectations were too high for this group entering the season. No one should have put them at the seventh-best odds to win the Stanley Cup. What have they done to warrant such high praise? Outside of two playoff appearances in the last three seasons, the Devils missed the playoffs every year since 2013, except for 2018. They drafted at number one twice (2017 and 2019), number four in 2021, and number two in 2022.
It is an average group that has yet to show it can consistently win night in and night out. When you think this group is right there, they always wilt in the end. Despite overhauling the roster year to year to correct past mistakes, the New Jersey Devils have yet to show on the ice that they are a true Stanley Cup contender.
It shows how mentally weak and soft this group is, letting distractions from potential trades involving Quinn Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, Ondrej Palat (traded to the New York Islanders), and others affect their on-ice performance. Despite the players saying they don’t hear the noise, they do. After they are humans.
But just because a trade was supposed to happen and did not, or was never going to happen in the first place, the reality is that Quinn Hughes not coming to New Jersey crippled this group. Championship teams don’t let the outside noise affect them. But some of those teams have shown they can make deep playoff runs, such as the Vegas Golden Knights, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Carolina Hurricanes, and others.
The New Jersey Devils Still Have Room For Improvement But Playoffs Are a Must
The New Jersey Devils have yet to prove they deserve to have those high expectations. Just because a team is good on paper does not mean it is good on the ice. New Jersey has a long way to go to prove what it takes to play winning hockey team.
While it is about the process, not the end result, time is slipping away in the 2025-26 season for the New Jersey Devils. The clock hasn’t struck midnight, but it is pretty darn close. Now the players and management aren’t going to believe they are out of the playoff race, just look at the move GM Tom Fitzgerald made. He got Nick Bjugstad as a depth center. That is not a needle mover.
The New Jersey Devils are averaging just over two and a half goals per game with the talent of Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, Dawson Mercer, and Luke Hughes on it. Now the Hughes brothers are hurt, but again, Fitzgerald needed a goal scorer, not a depth centerman. While needing a center is important, so is scoring goals.
Those frustrations keep mounting as the Devils continue to fail to score more than one goal in a game. When the offence runs through one player, high expectations aren’t warranted. Captain Nico Hischier said it best after Thursday night’s 3-1 loss to the Islanders: instead of playing for overtime, they tried to win the game, and it cost them.
“We did a lot, a lot of good things to win this game, but in the end, we come up short again should have just tried to get that overtime, and we’ve been good this season in overtime, and try to get the second point there,” Hischier said.
Devils Captain Nico Hischier Believes His Team Can Make a Deep Playoff Run
Contending teams know to stick with the game plan and just play for the extra point instead of forcing things. But because the players are so mentally fragile, they try to overcompensate in case they make a mistake. However, those overcompensations hurt the New Jersey Devils anyway, costing them games, wins, and points they desperately need.
And that is what it is all about. But it is also a sign that the Devils are not ready to compete for the top prize and are still an immature hockey club. Maybe this group isn’t who everyone thought they were.
“I think there’s a perception that we were a real hockey team before the work was put in, and you get exposed. That’s to me where we’re at,” Sheldon Keefe said following a loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier in January.
It just feels like season to season, some of the players on the roster think it will be easy, and once adversity strikes, they don’t know how to handle it. As Keefe has stated throughout the course, too many players are just going about their business in difficult situations.
New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald: “Where We Are At is on Me“
As Head Coach Sheldon Keefe talks about the team embracing the hard. He continues to reiterate, for the third time this season and perhaps even more, the mental fragility of this group.
“It’s partially confidence, partially mental toughness. We are just not mentally tough enough. Clearl,y these are critical moments in our season. You’ve got to find a way to make a play. Get yourself a lead. Get it going. Well, okay. You don’t wilt. You’ve got to stay with it. It’s up to you to get it to overtime. Get the extra point. Like, whether it’s I said it a lot last year, last season, and it’s it’s it’s shown up again, just whether it’s mental toughness and conditioning, physical toughness and conditioning, we’re wilting in these situations, and that’s just it’s not a good sign.”
Time to face facts: the standards the New Jersey Devils players want to play to are not being met. Until the Devils show they can not only stay healthy but also be consistent on the ice, New Jersey should not have high expectations any year.
Whether many want to hear it or not, this is a rebuilding team getting lapped by the field. Whatever expectations you have for this group, lower them. The New Jersey Devils are not worthy of being called Stanley Cup contenders anytime soon.
