If we are being brutally honest with the New Jersey Devils right now, they have officially collapsed. Their record of 7-8-3 since that December 27th win against the Hurricanes is one of the worst in the NHL. The team looks lifeless and flat, and they don’t want to be there until the 3rd period on most nights. And that's when they show up at all.
With Jacob Markstrom, Nico Hischier, and now Jonas Siegnthaler out for a while, the team thought, calling up Simon Nemec is the move to help this team win. He has had a recent stretch of good play in the AHL. When they called him up against the Golden Knights, their idea was to pair him with Luke Hughes, and it seemed like an interesting idea for a defensive pairing. Having both working off each other to create a nice defensive pairing to build momentum can work. However, that idea failed quickly as Nemec and Hughes struggled mightily in the first period.
Nemec allowed several Knights chances alone in the first several minutes, committed a holding penalty, had his stick exploded on him when he had an opportunity to get a shot away, and iced the puck several times. In the second period, Hughes allowed what seemed to be an own goal. However, that was quickly debunked after it seemed Nicholas Roy picked up a rebound. That still shouldn’t have been allowed to happen by Luke at all. Nemec got a bench that lasted less than 10 minutes in the second period.
According to The Hockey Writer beat reporter Daniel Amoia, the pairing of Luke and Nemec was 7.4 xG% in the first period, per Money Puck.
Luke Hughes & Simon Nemec:
— Daniel Amoia (@daniel_amoia) February 7, 2025
7.4 xG% in the first period, per MoneyPuck. Yikes.#NJDevils
Simon Nemec responded to his call up with possibly the worst game of his career.
It didn’t help that the entire team looked lifeless, but the effort for two top-5 picks needs to be better. It gets worse when, almost a month ago, Nemec expressed his frustrations about how he isn't getting any chances, and here he is trying to prove himself, and it’s perhaps the worst game of his career. It’s almost as if the adverse reaction over Devils fans selecting Nemec or guys like Logan Cooley or Shane Wright is coming true.
While it may have been one game together, and it still may be too early to tell if the pairing is a complete disaster or not, Keefe should still recognize that if this trend continues, he needs to switch up the lines because the last thing the Devils want to continue to do right now is slide even more farther down into the standings and out of a playoff spot.