Detailing New Jersey Devils Core Issues from December Slide

The 11 games the New Jersey Devils played in December turned this team from one of the best in the league to a team with many issues. The Devils may be on the rise with its structure and prospect pool of young talent coming up. Nevertheless, this team is in trouble.

With January coming in the next few days, there is a lot of time left to fix these issues because this team can keep pace with the rest of the league. It’s just that teams like the Rangers and Islanders are starting to catch up.

Goaltending has been the Devils’ main problem for the past few years. It’s a shame, too, as Mackenzie Blackwood and Vitek Vanecek looked great in October and November when the season started. However, when Blackwood got hurt again, Vanecek did a great job stepping up as the main goaltender. Fitzgerald also brought up Akira Schmid, who did a fantastic job during the streak backing up Vanecek.

However, things began to change recently. Akira Schmid was sent back down to Utica after a rough start, although he played very well before that. However, goaltending problems continued in the next stretch of games, as Blackwood returned and played awfully. Vanecek wasn’t much better. They often gave up goals they could’ve saved. So, if there is a solution to this problem, it would probably be to trade Blackwood and have the tandem be Vanacek-Schmid since it worked so well during the streak.

Another common problem with this team is finishing chances and scoring goals. For a team with a lot of goal-scoring potential, scoring shouldn’t be a problem. The week of Dec 13-20 showcased this when the Devils put up only 1 to 2 goals in those games. Most of those games, if not all of them, only saw Jack Hughes getting a goal. While Hughes’s scoring is always great, he shouldn’t be the only person on the team to score. During the streak, Jesper Bratt, the captain Nico Hischier, Dougie Hamilton, and even Yegor Sharangovic proved they could score goals. Even though the effort is there, the Devils can’t solve any goaltender recently. Getting guys like Ondrej Palat and Nathan Bastian back would be a fix, as well as trading for a winger.

Defense and discipline have been a real consistent problem. The team constantly gave up odd-man rushes during the stretch, which led to a few goals. It even gets worse when the Devils are without John Marino and Ryan Graves, who both got injured in the previous week. As for discipline, a noticeable problem has been getting a lot of penalties. One guy who gets a lot of penalties is Brendan Smith, who’s been supposed to help with leadership. These are minor fixes, and the Devils better fix these as well as the other issues mentioned here because the schedule won’t get easier.