Time To Call Devils’ Death By Multiple Haymakers
The bitter disappointment of this Devils season has been their inability to build momentum. I’m talking about shift-to-shift, not just game-to-game.
This team was capable of better things but they were constantly halted in their tracks. Some of it was bad luck and certainly a lot of it was self-inflicted.
You can point to any segment of the season—the Devils longest winning and losing streaks were three games. They played a great second period against the Rangers last Wednesday to take a 3-2 lead and then blew it in regulation. They held on for a 4-3 win at Ottawa on Saturday but then coughed up another one-goal lead in the third period before falling to visiting Nashville, 3-2, in Sunday’s shootout.
So it’s hard to pinpoint any one event that sent this Devils’ season sideways. Or a sole culprit. There were so many. You’ve heard of the axiom death by a thousand paper cuts? This was death by multiple haymakers. Below is a list of the main ones:
1) Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier are injured a week apart—and then Dougie Hamilton is lost for the season
Sandwiching Halloween, the Devils witnessed the frightening sight of their two No. 1 overall picks crumple to the ice, Hischier with a presumed concussion from an October 27 hit by Buffalo’s Connor Clifton and then Hughes from crashing into the St. Louis end boards on November 3. By the time Hischier returned on November 25, the Devils had gone from 6-2-1 to 8-9-1.
Two games later, Hamilton tore his pectoral muscle, an injury that required season-ending surgery. At the time, the Devils power play was humming at an NHL-best 36.8%. Though Luke Hughes was the PP1 quarterback back then as well, Hamilton, thanks mainly to his booming shot from the point—and the threat of it which opened up lanes for seam passes--had been on the ice for nine of New Jersey’s 25 goals with the man advantage, registering four goals and four assists of his own in 33:37 of power play ice time, per NaturalStatTrick.com. Since his injury, the Devils are ranked 30th with a 15.6% power play conversion rate, 31st when you factor in the seven shorthanded goals against.
2) Pre-Christmas giveaways
In the lead-up to the league Holiday break, the Devils appeared to have their ship righted. Other than Hamilton, they were healthy. Tanking Anaheim arrived at Prudential Center on December 17 with New Jersey looking to notch their ninth win in 11 games. Only it was the Devils who were in a charitable mood, with goalie Akira Schmid allowing four goals on 27 Ducks shots in an inexcusable 5-1 defeat. The Devils’ 2023 playoff savior wouldn’t win another game in his remaining five appearances before being shipped to AHL Utica last month.
The next game was a real killer. The Devils, so dominant in 3-on-3 overtime last season, had the Flyers right where they wanted them, with Jack Hughes having the puck on his stick with less than two minutes remaining in the extra session. However, his careless drop pass intended for his brother Luke at the Devils blue line was picked off by Philadelphia’s Owen Tippett, who buried the breakaway past goalie Vitek Vanecek for the gifted 3-2 victory.
If that weren’t bad enough, the Devils blew the next game versus Edmonton as well, surrendering three goals in a 1:09 span early in the third period to turn a 3-2 lead into a 5-3 deficit that ended with a 6-3 defeat. It was then I realized that making the playoffs was going to be a challenge.
3) Michael McLeod’s arrest
I’m going to refer you to my January 24 post (Emerging McLeod’s Devils Career Could Be Put On Ice (substack.com)) since the news of McLeod’s leave and arrest on alleged sexual assault charges was disturbing in ways well beyond hockey.
4) Hughes’ Muff
It might seem like I’m laying a good chunk of the blame for this Devils’ season at Hughes’ skates, but when you’re the team’s star, you’re going to have more opportunities to determine outcomes. So whereas Hughes’ 13th-ranked 1.19 points per game shouldn’t go unreported, it was gaffes like his botched deke on a March 1 penalty shot with two seconds remaining in a 4-3 loss to Anaheim (again!) that tend to stand out.
The Devils had just whipped San Jose, 7-2, to commence their three-game California trip, which they had hoped (again!) would jump-start a playoff push. Instead, the terrible loss and a no-show in Los Angeles in the next game motivated General Manager Tom Fitzgerald to fire Head Coach Lindy Ruff and pivot to selling leading goal scorer Tyler Toffoli for Draft capital at the following week’s NHL Trade Deadline.
5) Third period blues
Only Boston posted a better third period goal differential than the Devils last season. Through March 28, they were still a pretty good third period team, with a plus-five differential and dropping just two games when leading at the second intermission.
Coming off an exciting 6-3 victory at Toronto, the Devils crossed the border and looked to break a 2-2 tie in the closing 20 minutes in Buffalo. I guess the warranty for covering wheels falling off after two periods of use ran out. For over the course of the next five third periods, the Devils were outscored, 13-1.
New Jersey (37-36-5) was fortunate to have been saved by the horn against Ottawa and salvage a point against Nashville, but these lost opportunities were the final straw. With only four games remaining, the best they can get to is 87 points. Detroit, the last Wild Card seed, already has 84 points and a game in hand. Pittsburgh, Washington, and Philadelphia each have 83 points.
It’s hopeless. No more getting up off the mat, only to be knocked down again. I’m calling it: Death by multiple haymakers.