The New Jersey Devils are bad right now. There’s no two ways around it. The offense has been dreadful since the Christmas break. Since then, the Devils have nine standings points, fifth-worst in the NHL. The San Jose Sharks, the worst team since Christmas, got two of its six points from the Devils.
When looking at the offense, the numbers become more bleak. The Devils have 24 goals since Christmas. Only the Canucks and Sharks have fewer. The Devils have this wonderful (terrible) combination of an offensive desert and insanely bad luck. They have 138 high-danger chances at all strengths, but they only have 12 high-danger goals. Just on Sunday, they had 34 chances and 17 shots in the first period against the Senators and failed to score.
With all this going wrong, the Devils have to start making changes. They don’t really have a risk of falling down the standings, but if they let this go on for too long, the possibility is there eventually. So, to end this fall before it gets worse, Sheldon Keefe needs to make changes.
1. Make a trade
Or Tom Fitzgerald can make a change. Many have been calling on the Devils to make a change, especially with the struggles of the bottom six. The Devils have been “tied” to many names, including J.T. Miller of the Vancouver Canucks, but the latest rumors don’t have the Devils in the running. We assume the ask there is quite large, and the $8 million cap hit would be really hard to make work.
There are other names that are worth targeting. There are some interesting names on the Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and Seattle Kraken that could immediately jump into the middle-six and make a difference. A trade would make sense and would bring life into the locker room, but they can’t panic and lose someone like Simon Nemec because they are on a losing streak.