Do 2012-13 New Jersey Devils Make Playoffs With Full Season?

Since there is absolutely nothing going on right now, let’s go back in time New Jersey Devils fans. Let’s actually go towards the end of the team’s run of dominance that lasted nearly two decades. The Devils just finished a run to the Stanley Cup Final that fell two wins short of seeing a fourth banner go up. And then, tragedy struck in the form of a lockout.

The 2012-13 season was shortened to 48 games and did not start until January because of the expired Collective Bargaining Agreement. That had a big effect on a lot of teams, but it also brought up interesting time for our own New Jersey Devils. We are going to dive into everything, but first the main question of this article is, would this team have made the playoffs if they got all 82 games?

Let’s start with the offseason. It was a very important offseason as team captain Zach Parise was an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career. There was only two teams in on Parise when all was said and done, New Jersey and the Minnesota Wild. His father, JP Parise was very ill and he did end up passing later on in the season. The captain ended up leaving for Minnesota on a 13-year, $98 million contract. This led the Devils to nominate defenseman Bryce Salvador to be the next leader of the team.

Following that, the league locks out for the the rest of 2012. When the league finally gets its 48-game season underway in January, it is the Chicago Blackhawks who run away with Presidents Trophy in quick fashion going 21-0-3 in the first half of the season. The Devils, meanwhile, finished the shortened season in last place of the then Atlantic Division going 19-19-10. While that is pretty abysmal, they only missed a playoff spot by seven points. So that is what allows us to go into the question of whether or not the next 34 games could have made a difference.

The leading goal scorer that year was David Clarkson with 15 goals, followed by Patrik Elias at 14 and then a tie between Ilya Kovalchuk and Adam Henrique scoring 11. Now I think we all know after the seasons these four alone had in 2011-12 that their numbers would dramatically increase in these extra 34 games. Give a look to the entire scoring sheet of the season here. Of course, that does not guarantee victories, but better numbers from your star players usually end up leading to good things so we can assume there would be at least a few extra wins sprinkled in.

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Also, the Devils were missing Martin Brodeur for a 12-game stretch. During that stretch, they only won three games. He was never the same after a pinched nerve in his back. He had a .911 save percentage before the injury in February. After the injury, he had something around an .889 save percentage. If it was a full 82-game season, maybe they don’t have to rush him back.

The variable we cannot figure out here would be who and where those last 34 games would have been played. Obviously, they would have been 17 home and 17 away, but in terms of who they would play, when they would play them, how big of an impact on the race does this match up have? It’s too tough to say, that is something we cannot possibly analyze.

Now the playoff race was pretty tight between a lot of teams towards the end. Assuming that everyone remained consistent that was in the hunt it is likely our New Jersey Devils would have still just failed to reach one of the final spots for the dance. So yes, even with the extra 34 games they likely would have just fallen short of the playoffs for the second time in three years.

Of course during the 2012-13 offseason we know what happened and the rest is history. However, had the team made the stunning comeback and reached the playoffs, the offseason could have played out differently and thus, the entire future of the franchise. Things happen for a reason.

Just be patient fans, our time will come again.