It is becoming a scary trend for the New Jersey Devils: They cannot win on Prudential Center home ice. The Devils dropped their official home opener on Thursday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs by a score of 4-2, and they did not look great doing so.
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Chalk it up to the first game back from a long road trip, the hype of the home opener, the hype surrounding the team or the fact the Maple Leafs were bound to score and not get shut out again and just needed one more period in Montreal to score. Whatever the case wass, the New Jersey Devils looked flat and did not want to compete in front of their home fans.
This problem dates back to last season and previous seasons. Officially, in the NHL record book for 2024-25, the Devils are 1-1 on home ice. New Jersey was the home team for one of Prague’s two games against the Buffalo Sabres. However, they are 0-1 on Prudential Center ice.
Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe said last night, “We did not give our fans much to cheer about.”
While the atmosphere at the Prudential Center was excellent, and the team was cheered for player introductions, the Devils could not come to win on home ice. It does not help that the team falls 3-0 early into the first period. They will need to change things around and get wins on home ice this season, especially with expectations set so high for this club.
The Devils had lost six straight games to end last season in New Jersey, and that goes to seven in a row after Thursday night. Last season, the Devils had a record of 17-21-3 at Prudential Center with a 21-18-2 record on the road.
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Playing on home ice and racking up wins is essential. The New Jersey Devils previous playoff appearance was in the 2022-23 season when they had a winning record of 24-13-4 on home ice. The year before that, New Jersey again had a record under .500, at 16-20-5. During the COVID season, the Devils were under .500 on home ice. In 2018-19, they had a winning record but missed the playoffs.
While it was good to be home and playing on home ice, the Devils knew they wanted to give the fans and their head coach the win on Thursday night.
“Yeah, For sure, I think we wanted that for him,” Dougie Hamilton said post-game when asked about going up against a former club. “It hurts more not being able to do it.
Luckily, it was the first game coming back from Europe, and the next home game is on Monday afternoon against Utah. The Devils will start to get into a rhythm of playing games every couple of days again. However, this is a trend to watch moving forward. Can the New Jersey Devils have a winning record on home ice at Prudential Center?
