2023-24 NHL team preview: New Jersey Devils

LAST SEASON

Although Lindy Ruff was a finalist for the Jack Adams Award by the end of the season, the now infamous “fire Lindy” chants that rained down from the Prudential Center stands last fall were not as unreasonable as some might remember. In 2021-22, the New Jersey Devils did not make significant progress in their second season under the tutelage of the Buffalo Sabres legend. With secondary scoring at a premium, the Devils cycled through seven goaltenders en route to a consecutive bottom-five points total. Ruff was at the end of his rope to begin 2022-2023, and without palpable improvements, he was as good as gone.

Ruff is not the fifth-winningest coach in NHL history by coincidence, though, and after a league-record 49-point improvement, his reputation is as strong as ever. Now that the Devils went from seventh to second in a competitive Metropolitan Division, the same fans who called for his head now feel the 63-year-old has a chance to bring the Stanley Cup back to New Jersey.

Jack Hughes’s MVP-level play (43G, 99P) led a strong core of homegrown forwards, including captain Nico Hischier, Swedish sniper Jesper Bratt, and two-way special teamer Dawson Mercer. Erik Haula, Ondrej Palat, and, eventually, Timo Meier supplemented that group to create one of the most formidable top nines in the NHL as John Marino and Vitek Vanecek straightened out the Devils’ blueline and crease, respectively. The result: 291 goals and a team-record 112 points. The days of the neutral zone trap are gone, but can Ruff’s high-flying Devils replicate the success of the ruthlessly efficient Lou Lamoriello era?

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Tyler Toffoli, RW
Colin Miller, D
Erik Kallgren, G
Tomas Nosek, C
Cal Foote, D

Departures

Yegor Sharangovich, RW (Cgy)
Damon Severson, D (CBJ)
Ryan Graves, D (PIT)
Miles Wood, LW (COL)
Jesper Boqvist, LW (BOS)
Tomas Tatar, LW (COL)
Jonathan Bernier, G (Retired)

OFFENSE

The Devils put an explosive offense on the ice in 2022-2023 and featured six different 20-goal scorers even before they acquired three-time 30-goal man Meier from the San Jose Sharks. They finished fourth in the league in scoring, and any hope that they were a flash in the pan vanished when GM Tom Fitzgerald added more firepower during the offseason.

New Jersey would probably have improved without tinkering; Hischier was the oldest of the team’s four 27-goal scorers (Hughes, Bratt, Mercer) at 24, and the Devils’ stars are just now entering their primes. That did not stop Fitzgerald from moving Yegor Sharangovich and a third-round pick for Tyler Toffoli, a 31-year-old sniper who has averaged 30 goals per 82 games since 2019-20. Adding Toffoli and Meier to the Devils’ homegrown quartet will give New Jersey an unstoppable top-six group. Goals, goals, goals.

While there are some shooting percentages due for regression (Bratt converted on 15.1% of his shots, and Mercer 16.8%), veterans Haula and Palat should cover the difference by returning to their career-average conversion rates; both players struggled through snakebitten campaigns on the offensive end before turning it around in the postseason. 

Elsewhere, Tomas Tatar and Miles Wood hurt the Devils’ scoring depth by heading west to the Colorado Avalanche as free agents, but with so much talent at the top of the lineup, does that really matter? Checking forwards Tomas Nosek, Michael McLeod, and Nathan Bastian will form one of the more relevant fourth lines in the league, anyway; all three cracked the 15-point mark last season.

DEFENSE

Dougie Hamilton set the world on fire last season with 22 goals, second among defensemen, and 74 points en route to a top-six finish for the Norris Trophy. Remarkably, his pairing with Jonas Siegenthaler was not the primary focus of Devils’ fans’ praises throughout the season, as they preferred the no-frills duo of John Marino and Ryan Graves.

Marino, a cap castaway from the Pittsburgh Penguins, coupled with Graves to give Ruff a shutdown option on defense in the third year of his stay in New Jersey. The coach has to start over in 2023-2024 after a third of his defensive corps bolted for expensive contracts with division rivals. Graves ironically replaced Marino in Pittsburgh, and Damon Severson is off to the Columbus Blue Jackets on an eight-year contract, but it’s not all gloom and doom on the Devils blueline.

Sigenthaler and Hamilton led the team in minutes despite the frequent plaudits for their peers; they have found an excellent balance in covering one another’s flaws and will return as a pair next season. The uber-defensive Swiss lefty enabled Hamilton’s dashes through the offensive zone, and together, they controlled chances (54.45%) and goals (61.62%) at an impressive rate.

Top-prospect Luke Hughes will not replace Graves’s shot blocking and penalty killing but has the opportunity to form a similar dynamic to the one Sieganthaler and Hamilton share with the defensively conscious Marino. Hughes has an excellent chance at the Calder Trophy if Marino can keep him on the rails. The rookie will join a talented Devils roster with a 1.08 points-per-game pedigree over 80 collegiate contests.

GOALTENDING

After trading Mackenzie Blackwood to San Jose after a sometimes promising, often frustrating stint as a netminder in New Jersey, Fitzgerald has been content to take a conservative approach in the cage this offseason. Vanecek and Akira Schmid will split No. 1 duties and offer the Devils options at either end of the risk-reward spectrum.

In his first two NHL seasons, Vanecek shared time with Ilya Samsonov in Washington, posting decent numbers over 75 starts for the Capitals. Fitzgerald expected similar play when he traded for the Czech last offseason; if Vanecek could spell the talented but oft-injured Blackwood for 40 games, he would wash away the memory of the nightmarish goalie carousel of 2021-22. The 27-year-old did much more than that, seizing the starting role for 48 games and winning 33 as New Jersey charged back to relevance. His .911 save percentage was hardly dominant, but Vanecek’s consistent play and high work rate elevated the Devils.

When Blackwood did inevitably miss time, rookie Akira Schmid stepped up with an impressive 18-game audition in his place. The Swiss shot-stopper was New Jersey’s best option in his limited game time, allowing just 2.13 goals per contest while posting an elite .922 SV%. His playoff heroics, which included two shutouts, were enough to lift the Devils past the Rangers in seven games as Vanecek struggled.

Vanecek has shown the ability to keep his team in games, but the postseason exposed his upper limit; he turned into a shooting board (4.64 GAA .825 SV%) as Schmid excelled (2.35 GAA .921 SV%). Look for the three-year veteran to start for most early-season contests as the Devils ease Schmid into a high-leverage role in time for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

COACHING

Ruff will stay put in New Jersey after achieving the second-highest points total of his lengthy career, but there are still high-profile changes to the Devils’ staff. Andrew Brunette left the team after only a season to take over as head coach of the Nashville Predators, a move Fitzgerald and Ruff knew was inevitable. The former Minnesota Wild standout should never have been on the market to start; after relieving a disgraced Joel Quenneville seven games into the 2021-22 season, Brunette led the Florida Panthers to the highest-scoring season of the 21st century. The Devils’ power play he ran did not set the world on fire by finishing 13th, but it is no coincidence the presence of a second Presidents’ Trophy-winning coach coincided with the team’s historic turnaround.

Another former head coach will replace Brunette in the person of former Vancouver Canucks bench boss Travis Green. Green coached the ‘Nucks for more than 300 games from 2017 until 2021, and his close relationship with Fitzgerald dating back to their playing days should make the transition to assistant coaching a smooth one. Hamilton, Meier, and Toffoli are just a few of the weapons at his disposal on the power play, a unit that can go from good to elite next season.

ROOKIES

The big story is the younger Hughes brother, who has four points in five NHL games, including the postseason. Adding another elite offensive producer to the blueline, one who could play opposite Hamilton in late-game situations, could make this Devils team unfair. Hughes will get his opportunity; what he does with it could impact New Jersey’s season.

Simon Nemec (second overall in 2022) was a higher draft selection than former fourth pick Hughes. Nemec plays on a log-jammed right side of the defense and would gain little from severely limited NHL minutes at just 19. Fitzgerald traded for Miller to let the youngster gestate for a while longer.

Further up the ice, several rookies will duke it out for a precious few roster spots, with Alexander Holtz leading the way. There is considerable pressure on Holtz to produce at a top-nine level. Nolan Foote – no longer technically a rookie but with just 19 NHL games to his name – would likely settle into the bottom line should he make the team.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. Who’s protecting the stars? When Rangers captain Jacob Trouba leveled an unaware Meier late in Game 7 of their first-round series with the Devils, he seemed almost surprised that no one jumped him. Sure, the check was legal, and the abrasive New York defenseman was trying to get a rise out of his team, but that hit on that player had to have repercussions. It did not.

Even with their skill players on the ice for the power play and up 2-0, it looked bad that the Devils let Trouba slide. New Jersey would not (or could not) protect one of its stars from a rival notoriously willing to take liberties; that sets a dangerous precedent. Writers harp on the obsolescence of specialist fourth liners every offseason, but without one, who will stop the Philadelphia Flyers or New York Islanders from running a key down the side of the Devils’ well-oiled machine? McLeod is the team’s most capable scrapper; can he discourage the likes of Nic Deslauriers and Matt Martin?

2. What happened in the playoffs? Jersey fans celebrated a dramatic series comeback over the rival Rangers in their first playoff voyage in 2018, which kept the heat off of the team after an otherwise lackluster postseason. The Devils barely survived that series after allowing 10 Ranger goals (4 by Chris Kreider alone) in their first two home games before stifling New York over their next five meetings. Ruff may have outcoached Gerard Gallant to send the Blueshirts home, but the Devils struggled to make their mark in an Eastern Conference left wide open by early exits from the record-setting Boston Bruins and the battle-hardened Tampa Bay Lightning.

It took an injury-ravaged Carolina Hurricanes outfit just five games to solve the upstart team, who pushed them hard for the Metropolitan Division Crown all season; their meeting in the conference semi-final was more like a mismatch. Hamilton, Bratt, and Hischier combined for five points and a single goal over 15 contests as the Canes smothered and dispatched New Jersey. The honeymoon phase is over, and that sort of team-wide offensive collapse cannot happen again in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

3. Countdown to Connor Hellebuyck? The Connor Hellebuyck sweepstakes never got off the ground this offseason, as Joonas Korpisalo filled Ottawa’s vacancy in net, the Pittsburgh Penguins doubled down on Tristan Jarry, and the Los Angeles Kings spent all of their trade capital on Hellebuyck’s Winnipeg Jets teammate Pierre-Luc Dubois. Of the other teams that need a goalie, the Edmonton Oilers cannot possibly foot the bill for the former Vezina winner, the Buffalo Sabres seem content to wait and see what becomes of mega prospect Devon Levi, and the rest are not close enough to contention to pay a netminder superstar money.

With no obvious destination left for Hellebuyck, he has spent his summer at the center of Devils-related speculation. Although New Jersey does not desperately need a goaltender with Vanecek in place and Schmid on the rise, in a division with elite netminders like Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin, there is always a risk of being outdueled in the first round. If neither Schmid nor Vanecek finds a second gear by the midway point, the Devils could dip into their elite prospect pipeline to land a big fish near the trade deadline for a second straight season; swinging for pending UFA Hellebuyck would be a risk, but Stanley Cup contenders are often impatient.

PREDICTION

It is difficult to envision the aging Penguins or stagnant Rangers challenging this Devils roster for the Met. While Rod Brind’Amour’s Hurricanes love to punish doubters, they might not have the firepower to keep up, either. The Devils have a chance to steamroll what is usually the most competitive division in hockey and will likely challenge for the Presidents Trophy along the way. Uncertainty on defense and playoff inexperience might halt their success there, as growing pains come for even the most talented teams. Just ask the Colorado Avalanche.