What Happened to The Devils?

[The Kingslayer]

Couldnt get a save.

 

[Dialamo]

Horrid year, what can you do? Next year will be an even bigger shock if the Devils are not in a playoff spot. I feel good about a strong bounceback for them next season. Not like 22-23, but big enough to make some noise.

 

[PaulD]

1.Hughes is their best player. But injury prone, small, and soft.
2.Hamilton their best Dman out almost all season.
3.Like 20 other teams goaltending is average at best.

 

[FoxysExpensiveNYDigs]

Horrid year, what can you do? Next year will be an even bigger shock if the Devils are not in a playoff spot. I feel good about a strong bounceback for them next season. Not like 22-23, but big enough to make some noise.

Luckily they aquired Jake Allen and Kappo Kahkonen. Goaltending issue solved.

 

[A1LeafNation]

1 Brunette gone.
2 Hamilton injury.
3 Vanecek was a fake starter.

 

[Chainshot]

Did anyone mention goaltending? Because... goaltending.

 

[britdevil]

Luckily they aquired Jake Allen and Kappo Kahkonen. Goaltending issue solved.

They got rid of Vanecek's contract and allowed their two young goalies to go back to Utica before they get completely ruined. There's a chance they can still become NHL talent, no need to let them get lit up night on night.

Allen and Kahk are cannon fodder. Maybe Allen is backup next season.

You know that those two aren't seen as a long term solution. The GM won't openly admit that they have given up on the season.

 

[Voight]

Timo Meier turning into a pumpkin certainly didn't help.

 

[PatriceBergeronFan]

Overrated.

 

[norrisnick]

'22-'23 was a fluke?

All I've got...

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

If they had average goaltending than they are playoff team and this thread is never created.

There are alot of factors as to why the goaltending is bad , especially after Schmid looked like a stud in the making last year.

The season has been a bit of an eye opener in terms of what needs to be addressed this summer. Fitzgerald is most likely going to still go after Markstrom or another goalie. Allen wasn't brought in to be a savior/starter. I believe we also have a good amount of cap space this summer too but Fitzgerald knows how valuable that is.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

Goaltending, if you put a sub 900 goalie on any top team (never mind all 3 of your goalies being sub 900), all of them wouldn't do great

This was the Canes the first half of the year, they did just fine…

 

[xigon]

The universe decided they need to win one more draft lottery.

 

[boredmale]

While Goaltending is their biggest weakness I think the defense needs a little work as well

 

[Mr Positive]

They make me think that maybe parity is too strong in this league. They were a top contender last year. A couple injuries and some weak goaltending at it's totally flipped

 

[eojsmada]

Not enough defense and if you clog the transition game, the forwards don't do as well because they don't play a hard enough game, relying on speed and finesse to score goals, rather than going to the hard parts of the ice.

 

[Xirik]

This was the Canes the first half of the year, they did just fine…

Gee

I wonder if there is a difference between a team that hasn't been in the playoffs for 7 years and only one players is still around from that run and another team that has been in every playoffs since 2019.

 

[AhosDatsyukian]

Gee

I wonder if there is a difference between a team that hasn't been in the playoffs for 7 years and only one players is still around from that run and another team that has been in every playoffs since 2019.

Yes, kinda the point I was making in response to a post that was essentially blaming their lost season entirely on the goaltending. There are really many more factors, the goaltending has been brutal don’t get me wrong, but injuries, coaching, roster flaws in terms of skaters all factor in too. I think the Devils will be just fine in the longer run, many great young pieces already locked in. But they have some work to do on the roster and coaching staff aside from in net to get back to being considered contenders.

 

[lawrence]

From a 1 game sample size they currently lack defence. Hella explosive offensively though.

 

[Black Tank]

I get the goaltending sucked but it's the same tandem as last season, behind a much shittier defense.
Most devil fans claimed that losing Severson and Graves being replaced by Hughes and Nemec would be an upgrade, it wasn't.

As a nucks fan I've seen bad defense and the devils are sharks level easy to play against. It seems that fans of teams with shitty defense always lay the blame on goaltending because it's harder to fix a dcore than a goalie.

And if we're being brutally honest, the forwards are mostly below average defensively and last year was a fluke.

This is the best answer I've seen. devils fans are almost delusional about their young dmen being superstars without any understanding of how awful they are at actually playing defense. Whatever is happening with Severson and Graves now doesn't take away from the reality that they made NJ's defense last year better in many ways. They don't have that and they don't have some of the Fs from last year who made them difficult to play against. This year's devils team was too soft and too poor defensively to be a serious contender.

 

[Svechhammer]

They don't play defense. They're a team that invested all their money into generating offense to the point where even their big name defensive players are all in offensively. And while this makes them seem scary to play against, the Canes in the playoffs last year (without Svechnikov) showed that if you just take it to them they'll cave. And while they had some turnover defensively this summer it wasn't turnover that got them better defensively and it just made that bad situation worse.

And they can go out and get another goalie like Markstrom, it still won't help the root of their issues. They suck at keeping the puck away from their own net. Any goalie they have will be facing a shooting gallery nightly until they adjust as a franchise to fix the blue line.

 

[BB88]

Blueline got exposed, just not ready yet

 

[Jerzey Devil]

This season is on Fitz. Waited way too long to make any kind of change.

 

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Injuries, bad coaching, no goaltending, young defense, roster building (slow players to the bottom 6), Hockey Canada Scandal (McLeod), underperformed veterans... to name a few.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

They need a coach.
They need a starter.
They need a top 4 shutdown dman
They need more grit up front.

This team overachieved last year. Now that teams have figured out how to defend against them, its not a surprise that they're struggling this year.