Ranking Most Painful New Jersey Devils Moments Of Last Decade
Since the Steve Bernier hit in Game 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, nothing has gone right for the New Jersey Devils. The past decade of Devils hockey has been nothing but pain and suffering, and there is no better way of coping with it all than by rankings them. Let’s rank the top ten most painful Devils moments since the end of the 2012 season.
Honorable Mention: Anytime the Devils have played the Rangers since last March
It’s never fun to lose, but when the Devils lose to the New York Rangers, it stings a little more, and over the last two seasons, they’ve done a lot of that. The Devils have lost their last seven games to the Rangers, which is tied for the longest streak in head-to-head history. Also, in these previous seven games, they’ve been shutout twice and have been outscored 34-13. I’ve had gone to two Rangers/Devils games since 2019, and I’ve seen two hat tricks, both from the Rangers. There is no lonelier feeling in the world than being one of the few Devils fans at MSG and listening to their goal song play on loop for two straight minutes as they pick up all the hats.
Honorable Mention. The Jersey jersey
For ages, Devils fans have been begging the franchise to create a black alternate jersey, and they finally delivered. The only issue was they couldn’t have designed a worse jersey if they tried. Whether it’s the Jersey script going across the chest or the overload of white lines, the alternate blew up on social media for all the wrong reasons. What makes it even worse is that the last two green alternates were fantastic, and they barely wore them. These black alternates, however, are being worn 13 times this year.
10. Drafting Pavel Zacha
As the trade deadline nears and more rumors begin to pick up, it seems as if Pavel Zacha’s tenure with the Devils is soon coming to an end. Whether it’s Devils’ fans holding a grudge against him because he was picked ahead of a few all-stars or the contract debacle he had with GM Ray Shero back in 2019, Zacha’s Devils tenure was never smooth. In the 2015 NHL Draft, the Devils selected Zacha with the 6th overall pick. Right after him, three all-stars were selected, and three more all-stars a few picks later. Zacha has done nothing but under preform in New Jersey and is often criticized by fans for his lack of hustle. He’s also one of the many first-round misses the Devils front office have made dating back to 2004 when they selected Zajac.
9. The three own goal game vs the Ducks
Over the last few seasons, the Devils have been known to score a few own goals, but in a matchup against the Ducks in December of 2018, they did the unthinkable and scored three of them. Stefan Noesen got the party started after a pass caromed off his skate and into an empty net to make the score 1-1.
The third period is when the party got out of control. The Devils owned a 4-3 lead with 11:25 to go in the game when a Ducks player threw a backhanded floater from the blue line that resulted in Ben Lovejoy doing his best Jalen Reagor impression. Lovejoy failed to catch the puck, causing it to oddly deflect into the net. Five minutes later, Andy Greene decided to try and hit a fluttering puck over the net and instead whiffed on it completely, knocking it into the net. As if the game wasn’t a microcosm of the Devils’ play this decade, the Devils lost this game in a shootout.
8. Cory Schneider lost every regular-season game for well over a year
If it weren’t for Cory Schneider, the Devils would have made the first selection in every draft from 2013-14 to 2015-16. Night in and night out, Schneider carried sub-par Devils teams, making his rapid decline because of injuries even tougher to watch.
In a fourteen months span, the same Schneider who posted three consecutive .920 save percentage seasons, went 0-17-4, with one big postseason win. Over the 21 games, Schneider was far from perfect; he surrendered two or fewer goals just twice and posted a .842 save percentage.
The streak ended after the Devils battled back from a three-goal deficit to win in overtime against the Wild. Schneider would pick up a few more wins as a Devil, but injuries derailed the All-Star’s career.
7. Marty Brodeur signing with the Blues
Of the Devils’ three greats, Stevens, Niedermayer, and Brodeur, for a while, it seemed as if Marty was going to be the only one who spent his whole career with the Devils. Instead, after 21 seasons in New Jersey, Brodeur opted to become a member of the St. Louis Blues for seven games. Whether it was seeing him a Blues jersey or that he didn’t retire a Devil, the situation as a whole was a tough and odd one to stomach for Devils fans.
6. Nikita Kucherov hit on Sami Vatanen in Game 4
Losing that game and the series in 2018 against the Tampa Bay Lightning was heartbreaking. Still, it’s the hit on Sami Vatanen by Nikita Kucherov that genuinely irks this fanbase. At the end of the first period, Kucherov ran over Vatanen, but in doing so, he left his feet and made contact with only his head at full speed. Vatanen, the Devils’ best defenseman, would leave the game and not return for the rest of the series.
No suspension was assessed to Kucherov, nor a match penalty or minor penalty for that matter. He instead went on to score an empty netter in this game and the series-clinching goal in Game 5.
5. Any Ray Shero trade involving second rounders
One thing Ray Shero loved to do in his tenure was trade as many second-round picks as possible. In his time as Devils GM, he made five trades involving second-round picks, and none of them panned out the way you’d hope. His first of the five was a 2nd and 4th-round pick in exchange for Mirco Mueller, who is currently playing in the Swiss hockey league. The second rounder turned into Mario Ferraro, who is a very good defenseman for the Sharks.
Next and arguably the best trade was a 2nd and 3rd round pick for Capitals winger Marcus Johansson. When in the lineup, Johansson was a great contributor on offense, having scored 41 points in 77 games. Concussions, however, plagued him for most of his Devils tenure.
When the Devils were pushing for a playoff berth in 2018, Shero decided the Devils were going to be buyers at the deadline. He made a deal with the New York Rangers for the first time in franchise history. The Devils gave up a second-round pick and Yegor Rykov in exchange for Michael Grabner, who scored just five points in 21 games in his time with the Devils.
The summer of 2019 was the most exciting offseason in Devils’ history. There was a reason the Devils were the most popular dark horse bet to win the Stanley Cup. They went out and acquired a Norris Trophy winner in P.K. Subban and KHL MVP Nikita Gusev.
Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, and we now know neither of those trades went well. The Devils gave up two seconds and two prospects for Subban, who has been a shell of himself in New Jersey. As for Gusev, after his first season, a 2nd and a 3rd round pick for him was looking spectacular. Halfway through his second season, he was bought out.
4. Kovalchuk Retiring
As if Zach Parise leaving the season prior and David Clarkson signing with the Maple Leafs wasn’t challenging enough, the New Jersey Devils other star player retiring out of nowhere a year later was a sign that Devils hockey would be a disaster for the next decade. Ilya Kovalchuk originally signed onto a team that was fighting for a Stanley Cup, however, that didn’t seem to be the case anymore.
When Kovy walked away, he had 12 years remaining on his $102-million deal. A deal that would currently have three more years remaining on it. Did it sting when Kovalchuk left? Of course. But for a team who was struggling with all sorts of financial problems and would still be coughing up $6.5 million per season in cap space to a 38-year-old Kovy, it was a blessing in disguise.
If Kovalchuk stayed, the 2014 Devils would make the playoffs. Forget his offensive ability, if they had thrown him in for only shootouts, he still would have gotten them to the playoffs. He had a few more elite years in him, but by the time he came back to the NHL in the 2018-19 season, he was producing at a half-game per pace, nothing near to what his contractual value would have been.
3. Shootouts
Before the dark ages, when the Devils’ shootout lineup was Parise, Kovalchuk, and Elias, they had an all-time shootout record of 54-29. After Parise and Kovalchuk fled the Garden State, the shootout has been nothing but a guaranteed loss. Since the 2012-13 season, the Devils have gone a combined 25-59. Outside of the playoff berth in 2018, they have not had a winning shootout record in any season.
To make matters worse, during the 2013-14 season, the Devils fell five points short of making the playoffs. In that year, the Devils played in 13 shootouts and lost all thirteen. If they won shootouts, they were a wild card team. However, five games was a lot to ask for a team that only scored four goals on 44 shootout attempts.
It hasn’t gotten easier for the Devils either. Over the last two seasons, they have a 1-9 record in the shootout. Also, over those 10 games, they’ve converted just nine times on 37 attempts. This is a team with Jack Hughes on it. How are they this bad at the shootout?
The easiest way to solve the Devils’ shootout woes? Abolish the shootout. Simple as that. This is on the NHL more than it’s on the Devils.
2. 2019 Season Opener
This could easily be number one for me because of the emotional toll it took on me having been at the game.
The 2019 offseason could not have gone any better. The Devils acquired a former Norris trophy winner in P.K. Subban, a KHL MVP in Nikita Gusev, Wayne Simmonds, and first overall pick Jack Hughes. They were also going to have a healthy Cory Schneider and Taylor Hall. It just seemed like the Devils’ rebuild was finally over.
The game itself could not have been any better: the building was rocking as loud if not louder than Game 3 in 2018, the Devils jumped out to a 4-0 lead, and with 10 seconds left in the second, everything collapsed.
After surrendering an early third-period goal, Schneider would have to leave the game, and the downfall continued. The Devils would blow a 4-0 lead, lose in a shootout, continue to lose games, fire John Hynes, trade Taylor Hall, and finish with one of the worst records in the NHL.
With the hype surrounding the team from the offseason, and the picture-perfect start, that was no ordinary loss. The energy was sucked out of the building and the locker room. I could be a blind Devils fan refusing to acknowledge that the second half of that game was the real Devils. If they win that game, I firmly believe Taylor doesn’t get traded and that teams make the playoffs.
1. Zach Parise Leaving
Unlike my conspiracy theory on the last one, Parise leaving did send the Devils into a spiraling downfall that they are still in today.
It doesn’t happen very often that a team’s captain elects to leave his team in free agency right after losing the Stanley Cup. If Parise elected to stay, those Devils teams had another crack at winning a cup. Instead, he chose to sign in Minnesota, and the Devils could never fill the hole he left.
It was the most Devils thing imaginable, they make the Stanley Cup, and their star captain leaves in free agency. It’s happened a million times, but for a twelve-year-old me, this was my first time truly experiencing something like this.
Next. Biggest Draft Steals In New Jersey Devils History. dark
Since Parise left, the Devils have appeared in one playoff series and have lost as much as any other team. Only the Arizona Coyotes, who will be playing at an EASHL rink next season, and the Buffalo Sabres, who cannot fill up half of their arena, have more losses than the Devils. In other words, it hasn’t been fun to watch Devils hockey since he left, and that was a decade ago.