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After missing out on the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season, the New Jersey Devils are back in the dance in 2024-25. It's been a solid campaign for Sheldon Keefe's club, who have dealt with a couple of devastating injuries, along with inconsistent play, throughout the year.
Two postseasons ago, the Devils beat the New York Rangers in a thrilling seven-game series before bowing out to the Carolina Hurricanes in five games in Round 2. Once again, New Jersey will be playing a familiar Metropolitan Division rival, beginning in Raleigh, next weekend.
The Canes are currently second in the Metro with a 46-27-5 record through 78 games. They won't catch the Washington Capitals, who are a full 12 points up and have already clinched the Eastern Conference. What they will have is home-ice advantage against the Devils in a rematch of the 2023 second-round.
As of Saturday, the Devils are 41-31-7 and eight points back of Carolina with only three games left. New Jersey will play the New York Islanders at home on Sunday afternoon, travel to Boston to play the Bruins on Tuesday night, and complete their schedule against the Detroit Red Wings at the Prudential Center the next night.
It goes without saying that the Devils can't catch the Hurricanes at this late stage of the campaign. Game 1 between the two will begin on either April 19 or 20 at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh.
And although it wouldn't be impossible for New Jersey to upset Carolina and avenge their loss two seasons ago, it's going to be difficult to overcome their fatal flaw: a lack of goal scoring, which has become even more concerning without the services of superstar Jack Hughes.
Devils just aren't the same team without Jack Hughes
Take the best forward off of any team in the National Hockey League and that team is going to get a lot worse. That's obvious. But it's hard to quantify how important Hughes is to the Devils. Selected first overall back in the 2019 NHL Draft, he's been a well over point-per-game player in each of his last four seasons.
The 23-year-old broke out in 2022-23, amassing 43 goals and 99 points over 78 games. He was also a critical piece in the postseason, recording 11 points in 12 playoff games before the Devils were ousted by the Hurricanes. He only played 62 games last year, but still managed 74 points.
In 2024-25, he'll finish the campaign with 27 goals and 70 points in 62 tilts. Hughes devastatingly suffered a shoulder injury at the beginning of March and underwent surgery shortly afterwards. Although he's expected to be ready for training camp, he will not play again this year.
That leaves Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier and Timo Meier to pick up the slack. All three have been great this year — especially Bratt, who has 88 points in 79 games — but Hughes is impossible to replace. The fact he is still second in scoring and hasn't played in a month-and-a-half says a lot.
Can Dougie Hamilton return to form right away?
Along with Hughes, the Devils also lost Dougie Hamilton to a long-term ailment back on March 4. It was announced the next week that he would miss the rest of the regular-season, and that seems like it will hold true.
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The silver lining is that the key defenseman is expected to return to the lineup against the Hurricanes in the postseason.
“We’re getting Dougie Hamilton up to speed here. We expect him to be available for us,” Keefe confirmed earlier this week. “We’ll be hopeful that Dougie will be good to go, looks like he is, but we have to ramp him up.”
The 6-foot-6, 230-pound blueliner has been skating on his own in full gear during his rehab, and remains second in blue line scoring with nine goals and 40 points over 63 games.
Getting Hamilton back is absolutely enormous for this Devils team. But he's going to be thrown right into the fire against a fantastic Hurricanes team, and it would make sense if it takes him some time to get up to speed. Unfortunately, New Jersey doesn't have that kind of time, and will already be battling just to stay in the series without Hughes.
New Jersey is in bottom half of league in goal scoring
When the Devils lost Hughes and Hamilton, there were concerns this team wouldn't even advance to the postseason in 2025. But they've been resilient, managing to play just above .500 hockey since March 9. It isn't great, but considering the injuries — Jonas Siegenthaler is also out — it's been a decent stretch.
The problem is, New Jersey is having trouble scoring goals. As of Saturday, they're potting 2.95 goals per game. That's good enough for 19th league-wide, which isn't great considering they'll be one of the last 16 teams standing when the regular-season concludes next Thursday. Right now, there are only two playoff teams scoring less goals: the Minnesota Wild, who were without Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek for long stretches, and the Ottawa Senators.
If the Devils are going to have any chance of beating the Hurricanes in Round 1, they are going to need to find a way to score more. Frederik Andersen has been phenomenal between the pipes when healthy this season, and if he falters, Pyotr Kochetkov is also an above-average goaltender. It doesn't help that Carolina is one of the stingiest defensive teams in the league, and will be getting KHL standout Alexander Nikishin into the lineup for the series.
The odds are stacked against the Devils, and that makes sense considering they don't have Hughes, and will be hoping Hamilton can immediately find top form despite being out for almost two months. The X-Factor here is Jacob Markstrom, who has put together a couple of terrific playoff runs in the past and will be relied upon in a huge way to keep the puck out of the net.
If New Jersey is able to get out of Round 1 — a big if — they could be in for another difficult series against Alex Ovechkin and the Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals in the second round. It'll be interesting to see if the Devils can prove the doubters wrong, overcome the injuries, and find a way to earn an upset like they did over the Rangers in Round 1 back in 2023.
