New Jersey Devils: November Will Make Or Break Season

Another blown loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning has New Jersey Devils fans on the brink. However, despite a terrible October, the Devils could make everything right in just one month.

October literally couldn’t have gone worse for the New Jersey Devils. They went 2-5-3 and are currently sitting near the bottom of the entire NHL. They had leads in six of those eight losses. In four of those losses, they had multiple goal leads in four of those games, including their most recent game against the Tampa Bay Lighting. They were leading 5-3 in the third period, and ended up losing 7-6 in overtime.

The fanbase is in the worst way we’ve seen in years. After all the hype, it took literally one month to have everyone giving up on the season. The Devils added P.K. Subban, Nikita Gusev, Wayne Simmonds and a healthy Taylor Hall this offseason. Subban said he played like a rookie last game. Simmonds has zero goals in his first 10 games. Gusev was just a healthy scratch. Hall is on pace for eight goals coming off a major knee injury.

It’s no wonder the Devils fans are backlashing. The only offseason acquisition that’s been living up to anything is Jack Hughes. John Hynes system doesn’t seem to be meshing with his new players, and the veterans can’t do enough to make up for it.

Despite how terribly it’s gone, this season is not over. It is only ten games in. The team has 72 games left to make this right.

November is a very important month for the Devils. The Devils play 15 games in the 30 days that are in November. That means the Devils will have played 25 games once the month is finished, and that can certainly put what could be close to a final nail in the season’s coffin if it goes like the first month went.

Of these 15 games, eight of them involved back to backs. That means the Devils don’t really have time to focus on the negative. All these blown losses have really put a damper on the season, but if they don’t have time to worry about it, it can’t hurt their confidence. We as fans are scarred, and we imagine the Devils themselves are also scarred by these losses, but with games coming right after another, they can forget them quickly. Heck, if they can win on Friday and Saturday, much will already have been forgotten.

Let’s say the Devils need 95 points to make the playoffs this season. With seven points already in the bank, they need 88 points over 72 games. To get back on track, they need to somehow get 22 points in November. That seems extremely unlikely, but definitely not impossible. The team would have to go 10-3-2 in the month of November.

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Now, again, that’s extremely improbable. The best teams in the league play at a pace like that. The point is it is possible to change the fortunes of the Devils in one months’ time.

A more possible route is just cutting a dent into the deficit in November. If the Devils go, say, 8-5-2 in November, that has them coming out of November with a total record of 10-10-5. That’s a ton of overtime losses already, but that seems to be how this season is going thus far. That would give the Devils 25 points after 25 games. They would then need 1.23 points per game for the rest of the season.

If the Devils go 33-20-4 for the rest of the season, that’s likely going to be enough to make the postseason this year. Nine of the 15 games this month come against teams currently outside the playoff race. It’s early, but with the Devils schedule so packed, it’s nice to know more than half of it is at least easy.

Things can go awry for the Devils season if they can’t get it together in November. If they even go .500 like 7-7-1, then they come out of November with 22 points. They would need 73 points over the final 57 games. With how the team has played, it might be near impossible to make up those deficits.

This is one of the most important regular season months in recent memory. After all the hype, the Devils are on the verge of the offseason meaning nothing, and making it near impossible to keep Taylor Hall this offseason. That’s not a discussion for now. For now, we just need to focus on winning games in November.