The New Jersey Devils are in first place in the Metropolitan Division. It feels like a miracle that this is the truth with all the adversity they’ve faced this season. Despite injuries to Jack Hughes, Stefan Noesen, Cody Glass (twice), Evgenii Dadonov (twice), Zack MacEwen (twice), Dougie Hamilton, Jacob Markstrom, Johnny Kovacevic, and Brett Pesce (somehow, among others), they keep winning games.
The Devils’ win on Wednesday night against the St. Louis Blues was an example of how they are winning games. They are asking their top two lines to dominate while the bottom six survives and hopefully takes advantage of a mistake.
It wasn’t exactly the game most hoped for when facing a lowly team like the Blues, but getting two points from a Western Conference team is more like a pass-fail than it is a traditional grade value. As long as the Devils got two points, that’s all that matter.
Markstrom bounced back from a rough first period and shut the door down for two periods and overtime. Simon Nemec was once again Mr. Clutch, scoring the overtime game winner, but the real story here is the one being told by Devils captain, Nico Hischier.
Hischier had an up-and-down start to the season. He was getting the most important defensive responsibilities while also trying to turn opportunities into offense. He was seeing different line combinations, mostly sticking Swiss winger Timo Meier. Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe was balancing his ability to shut down top offensive producers with the fact it was tearing down his offensive production.
Through the first 17 games of the season, Hischier had 13 points. It wasn’t a devastating number, but there were too many games where Hischier looked off. He wasn’t fast on the puck like he was last season, and the offensive instincts weren’t there. It got so bad that many assumed he was dealing with an injury.
Then, Jack Hughes got injured. When the Devils’ star forward suffered a cut to his hand that will keep him out for eight-ish weeks, Hischier was now facing even more pressure to perform. He has done that in a huge way.
Hischier has had eight points in the last four games. He has three straight multi-point games. Hischier has been driving the offense since being paired with Meier and Jesper Bratt.
Nico Hischier's new level of production must last for the New Jersey Devils to be true contenders
The Devils have sorely needed this version of Hischier. Ideally, when the Devils are looking to compete, they want multiple game breakers spread across the offense. If Hischier is doing this when Hughes comes back, this is going to look like a team that can win it all.
That’s a huge claim, but with everything else the Devils have at their disposal, they could compete with anyone. Even the Colorado Avalanche, who look like head and shoulders ahead of everyone, split a back-to-back with the Devils last month. When Hischier and Hughes are both on, and the defense isn’t completely devastated by injuries, it’s hard to keep the Devils out of the Stanley Cup conversation.
Obviously, that’s a big “if.” We haven’t had it all come together except once. The Devils beat the Rangers in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but they couldn’t recover from that series fast enough to compete with the Carolina Hurricanes.
With Keefe at the helm, we’d expect a completely different outcome.
Everything could come together perfectly for this team, including a possible Quinn Hughes trade, and that would push them to the top of the betting markets.
Think about it. The Devils are in first place in the Metropolitan Division despite having a weaker Nico Hischier and basically half the team on IR at one point or another. If this is the worst of it, will the Devils become a powerhouse once the calendar hits 2026 and they get all these pieces back?
There’s a lot that can happen from now until the playoffs, but as long as Hischier and Hughes are in the lineup and playing at the top of their games, they should be in any game at any time.