We lost confidence in five New Jersey Devils players thanks to this season.
The New Jersey Devils were probably the second most disappointing team in the NHL this season. Only the San Jose Sharks did worse with more expectations. At least the Devils still have their 1st-round pick.
Still, there are some long-standing impacts for the fans of this franchise. Devils fans had thoughts about players on the team coming into the season that they just don’t feel about them now. A lot of us thought the Devils could have been something fun, but this ended up being the least fun season in franchise history.
We had a coach firing, a GM firing, trading away the star player for less than what we hoped, trading away the captain, just the fire sale at the NHL Trade Deadline in general, and a long list of other terrible things that happened to this team. It’s hard to even fathom this much going wrong in one season and not even mentioning how bad it was on the ice.
Speaking of the trade deadline, we’re trying to find players who are still on this team that had any expectations anyway. Losing Wayne Simmonds, Blake Coleman, Andy Greene, Taylor Hall, Louis Domingue, and Sami Vatanen takes six NHL players off the roster in one fell swoop.
Some of the players are going to need to prove that this season was a blip because the fans aren’t going to go into the next season with the same level of faith as they had this season. Whether they are star players or ones that have a role, the Devils need to show they can perform.
These five players were supposed to help this Devils team become a contender, but now there are questions of what their future holds.