5 Mistakes New Jersey Devils Can’t Repeat This Season

The New Jersey Devils made a lot of really smart moves this offseason to make this team look like a playoff contender on paper. Here’s the issue with that: we’ve been here before. Just a scant two seasons ago, the Devils made all the “right” moves in the offseason. They added P.K. Subban for a very small package of future assets. They traded some draft picks to take a chance on Nikita Gusev. Jack Hughes was going to be a rookie, but he looked like he had the special kind of skill to make it in the NHL from day one. Wayne Simmonds was ready to revitalize his career.

Then it all fell apart. It went off the rails pretty quickly, actually. The Devils lost the first seven games of the season. Ray Shero held on to John Hynes way too long. They made so many mistakes in the 2019-20 season that it led to another year in the basement. There wasn’t much to get excited about, they traded away Taylor Hall, Blake Coleman, Simmonds, Sami Vatanen, and they fired Hynes and Shero eventually. Everything went wrong, but the team needs to learn from those mistakes.

Last season, the second Corey Crawford retired, it became clear it was going to be another long season. We didn’t realize how long it would be. COVID-19 outbreaks, more stars being traded away, historically bad special teams, and an overall bad vibe around the team just turned into bad and borderline boring hockey. This offseason, the Devils showed they were sick of losing. They paid huge money to bring in Dougie Hamilton, Tomas Tatar, and Jonathan Bernier. They traded for Ryan Graves. They let some of the old baggage leave in free agency, and they even moved on from assets who didn’t work like Will Butcher.

The Devils must learn from past mistakes if they want to avoid another disaster season. It’s not as fragile as it was in 2019-20 where the Devils put too much confidence in Cory Schneider, but it still has disaster potential.