The Devils Are Ready To Roll: Five Predictions For The 2023-24 Campaign
Ok, so the Devils won’t be sneaking up on anyone this season. No more parade of opposing backup goaltenders in the Prudential Center nets. Teams will be prepared to choke off New Jersey’s dynamic rush game.
I’ve heard it all. But you know what? The Devils, who open the season with a home tilt versus Detroit on Thursday, are a really good hockey team, one that can contend for the Stanley Cup in the spring if things go right. And that should be celebrated throughout the 2023-24 campaign, especially in these parts where most other pro teams have underperformed. In many cases, depressingly so.
Of course New Jersey has vulnerabilities. The team’s goaltending always brings the potential for headaches and Head Coach Lindy Ruff will be relying on some young defensemen to fill the slots vacated by Daman Severson and Ryan Graves after last season, when the club set a franchise record for points (112) and won their first playoff series in 11 years by defeating the hated Rangers in seven exciting games.
Still, you can argue that this team got better over the summer, with the addition of 37-goal scoring wing Tyler Toffoli bringing an added dimension to a line with elite playmakers Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt. Timo Meier, another high-scoring wing who along with Bratt re-upped with New Jersey in the offseason for eight years, will have a full season in the program after coming over from San Jose at February’s trade deadline.
The Devils are deep, fast, and still fairly young—the 6th-youngest team in the league, according to NJ.com’s Ryan Novozinsky’s analysis of CapFriendly.com as of Monday’s deadline to set 23-man, salary cap-compliant rosters. If needed, General Manager Tom Fitzgerald has the wherewithal to provide boosts from trade buying in advance of the playoffs.
What a change in a year, huh? Here’s five predictions for what should be an enjoyable Devils season:
1) The Devils will boast eight 20-goal scorers
If you go back over the last quarter century, the last time the team counted more than the six skaters (not including Meier, who posted 9 of his 40 goals in a Devils uniform) from last season who reached the 20-goal plateau was in 2000-01, when they had seven. In many seasons, they were lucky to have two such snipers.
For this year, take last season’s leading scorers, replace Tomas Tatar with Toffoli, and add in Meier and either Erik Haula or Luke Hughes to get to eight.
2) A goalie not on the current 23-man roster will play in at least 10 games
My crystal ball isn’t clear enough to tell me who that netminder will be—it won’t be Connor Hellebuyck, who recently had his contract extended by Winnipeg for 8 years at an $8.5 million AAV. Guys of that ilk are too rich even for Fitzgerald’s Black Cap Magic. Still, the 1A/1B tandem of Vitek Vanecek and playoff savior Akira Schmid isn’t written in ink for a full 82-game season.
Many experts speculated that Fitzgerald was in the goalie market this summer but found it too pricy. At this point, he should still be window-shopping, for whether it’s due to injuries or ineffectiveness, Fitzgerald will need to fortify the position, either through a call-up (top prospect Nico Daws underwent hip labrum surgery in the offseason and is starting this season on injured reserve) or a trade.
3) Nico Hischier will win the Selke Trophy. Jack Hughes will finish in the top five in the Hart Trophy balloting, and Luke Hughes will be a Calder Trophy finalist
With Boston’s Patrice Bergeron retired, why not Hischier as the next man up for the league’s top defensive forward? Hischier posted an expected goals for percentage a tad under 60% last season, placing him fifth among NHL centers with at least 800 minutes of ice time, per NaturalStatTrick.com. A heavy dose of those minutes were against the oppositions’ top scoring lines and with the seventh-most defensive zone starts of any center in the league. I heard Ruff say that he wants to minimize Hischier’s time on the penalty kill this season, utilizing Tomas Nosek and Curtis Lazar instead, but I foresee that the temptation will be too great to put Hischier out there in potentially momentum-swinging situations. Scoring isn’t supposed to matter in the Selke voting, but it does, and another 80-plus point season from Hischier should clinch it.
Jack Hughes had as strong a case for last season’s MVP award as any non-Connor McDavid candidate until a late-season injury cost him a few games that left him a point short of 100 (though still a franchise record). The eighth-place finish in the Hart balloting still felt like a slight. With the kid seemingly getting stronger every season and on the cusp of becoming one of the faces of the league, he’ll get a bump into the top five in 2024.
Luke Hughes has the same smooth-skating gene as his brothers Jack and Vancouver defenseman Quinn. He’ll have to learn how to pick his spots, but with ice time slotted to quarterback the Devils’ power play unit with Jack Hughes, Bratt, Toffoli, and Ondrej Palat, he’ll have many opportunities to pile up points, which is what impresses Rookie of the Year voters most. Chicago’s Connor Bedard is currently the runaway favorite, so simply reaching the top three would mean Hughes had a heck of a season.
4) Travis Green will have the power play humming into the top ten
The Devils’ power play wasn’t awful last season—they placed 13th in the league at 21.9%. Ex-associate coach Andrew Brunette received plenty of stick taps for engineering a massive improvement from the prior season before he departed to take the head coaching position in Nashville. However, I thought goals were left on the table given that team’s ingredients to produce an even more effective power play.
The Devils seemed awfully regimented in their work with the man advantage. Opponents knew exactly what they would do, from the puck drop pass to gain speed into the neutral zone, to their entries, and into their diamond set-up where the first look was the cross-circle seam pass. Too often, the net front wasn’t occupied by a power forward screen-setter, allowing opposing goalies to see incoming shots with his defensemen in optimal positions to clear rebounds.
Obviously, you can’t draw conclusions from New Jersey’s preseason that generated a ridiculous 38% power play efficiency, but Travis Green, Brunette’s replacement, seems to be a bit more open-minded about the process. It will help now that he has two elite five-man units to go to. Imagine feeling relief that you got through the Devils’ first wave featuring the likes of Hischier, Meier, and point bomber Dougie Hamilton—and on comes Bratt, Toffoli, and both Hughes brothers. Yikes.
5) The Devils will finish with fewer points than last season
I did say above that this team will be improved, but it won’t be reflected in the results. The decrease won’t be a substantial amount; just enough to account for the new aforementioned realities—being the hunted, possible goalie variance, young defensemen learning curves, etc.
At this stage of the program’s development, the season will be defined more by the playoffs than its regular season point total anyway. Having home ice advantage often helps, but it’s not like it’s necessary. We haven’t had a Cup Final between a pair of division winners since 2018.
Taking the next step to the Eastern Conference Finals will be how this team will be remembered.
Regular Season Prediction: 49-23-10 (108 points)