Subscribe
Follow Us
For the fifth consecutive time, the Carolina Hurricanes have knocked the New Jersey Devils out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. After blowing a 3-0 Game 5 lead and eventually losing 5-4 in double overtime in Raleigh, Sheldon Keefe's troops are the first team to be eliminated from the postseason.
Although there is a fair share of blame to go around, New Jersey came into this series as underdogs against a Carolina team that once again has Stanley Cup aspirations. Not many people around the hockey world gave the Devils a chance, especially considering the plethora of injuries the squad is currently dealing with — and has since late in the regular season.
Just like in the 2023 second round, it only took the Canes five games to dispatch of their Metropolitan Division rivals. And in the process, Rod Brind'Amour became the first head coach in NHL history to win at least one round in each of his first seven campaigns behind the bench.
That's a crazy stat, and helps to show how far apart these franchises are on paper. Carolina has made the playoffs in each of the last seven years, and advanced to the Eastern Conference Final twice in that span. New Jersey has advanced to the dance just twice in the last seven seasons, and both times, they were knocked out in five by the Hurricanes.
It's worth mentioning that a healthy Devils roster looks nothing like the team that took to the ice for Game 5 in Raleigh on Tuesday night. The franchise has dealt with brutal break after brutal break, and that has to be factored in when assessing blame ahead of another disappointingly long offseason in Newark.
Injuries doomed the Devils from the start
It's going to be hard for any team to win a series — especially as an underdog — without its best player. Jack Hughes went down with a shoulder injury early in March, and had surgery shortly afterwards. After scoring 70 points in 62 games, it goes without saying that the team missed him tremendously in this series.
Along with Jack, the second of the three Hughes' brothers was also unavailable after Game 1 when Luke sustained an undisclosed injury during a 4-1 loss in Game 1 on April 20. Brenden Dillon was also injured in the game, and neither of the key defensemen played again. That was a terrible blow to a blue line that had just gotten Dougie Hamilton back (more on him in a second).
To add insult to injury, D-man Johnathan Kovacevic suffered an ailment of his own in Game 3. Losing three defensemen in a single series is devastating, and the Devils were just unable to overcome. With Jack Hughes already unavailable, it was just a nightmare scenario.
But not all of the blame can be attributed to injuries; it's the NHL and guys need to step up. In this series, the Devils' depth forwards did the absolute opposite of that.
Depth scoring struggled all series, and powerplay was even worse
New Jersey suffered a serious secondary scoring outage, and it was one of the main reasons they are going out so early. Erik Haula and Paul Cotter managed just a single assist each in the series, while Cody Glass, Nathan Bastian and Tomas Tatar didn't manage a single point. That's unacceptable.
Like in the regular season, the squad was led by the top guys, that being Nico Hischier (four goals), Timo Meier (four points) and Jesper Bratt (three points). Besides those players, Stefan Noesen and Dawson Mercer, not a single forward managed to score a goal. That's just not a recipe for any kind of success, and it made even more plain how much the team misses two key offensive drivers in Jack and Luke Hughes.
Along with that, the team's powerplay was absolutely abysmal. After finishing third league-wide in the regular season at a scorching 28.2 percent, this squad somehow, somehow, went 0-for-15 with the man advantage in the series. Carolina deserves a lot of credit for their excellent penalty kill, but that is just unacceptable all around. Adjustments needed to be made, Keefe needed to shake things up, and in the end, zero powerplay goals is almost never going to win you a series.
In terms of specific players, Mercer really needed to step up in Hughes' absences, and was unable to do so throughout the series. He was also in the penalty box for Sebastian Aho's series-clinching goal.
Dawson Mercer was a mighty disappointment, and cost his team Game 5
While the depth was brutal all around, Mercer needs to be singled out. Despite averaging over 21 minutes of ice time in the series, he managed just two goals and zero assists in five games, along with a minus-six rating — worst on the team.
Despite playing with Bratt at 5-on-5, Mercer just couldn't find a way to be as effective as he needed to be in the series. And maybe more importantly, he took two penalties in Game 5. One of them was a double minor on Hurricanes forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi in double overtime, which allowed Aho to put the nail in New Jersey's proverbial coffin. He wasn't able to control his stick, cut Kotkaniemi badly, and was in the penalty box when Carolina won the series.
Besides Hischier, Bratt, Meier, and to an extent, Noesen, no forward played very well for this team. Not two-time Stanley Cup champion Ondrej Palat, not Cotter, not Haula, and certainly not Mercer — especially in Game 5.
Dougie Hamilton needed to be an X-factor and wasn't
Injuries and a significant lack of depth scoring sank the Devils in this series. So did an abysmal powerplay. And after being out for a massive chunk of the season, it's hard to put too much blame on Dougie Hamilton.
But with so many defenseman out, he had the opportunity to be an X-factor on the blue line after losing Hughes, Dillon and Kovacevic. He did record 40 points in 64 regular season games, after all, including five powerplay goals.
Instead, Hamilton managed just two assists in five games, while skating to a minus-three rating. That's worse than any other blue liner on the team; he was outplayed and outscored by both Brett Pesce (three points and plus-four) and youngster Simon Nemec (two points and plus-three). Again, it's hard to blame Hamilton too much after he just returned to game action in April. Still, the Devils badly needed him to be more of a factor.
Overall, this was a series New Jersey was going to be hard-pressed to win. Give the squad two healthy Hughes brothers and a couple more weeks of a healthy Hamilton, and things could have went a lot differently. As it is, the Hurricanes were the better team and are well-deserving of advancing to Round 2 in 2025.
If the Devils can stay healthy next season, there's no reason why they shouldn't be back in this exact same spot — with a much better chance to win — in a year from now.
