The New Jersey Devils have not played their best hockey down the stretch. In fact, they've been pretty bad since Christmas. However, they banked enough points in the first half of the season that they easily got into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Devils finished with 91 points on the season after losing to the Detroit Red Wings 5-2 on Wednesday night. It's safe to say there's not a ton of confidence in the Devils going into the playoffs, but they made it, which is important to this point.
This franchise has hit the 90-point threshold 18 times. They made the postseason every single time they've hit 90+ points. It seems nearly impossible since every year there are teams who just miss the playoffs with 90+ points, but the Devils have always avoided that.
To be fair, the Devils have never had a point total in the mid-90s. They've made it to the high-80s multiple times, with some years making the playoffs (like in 1992 and 1993), while other years failing to hit 90 points was a death march (like when they had 88 points in 2013-14).
New Jersey Devils have made the playoffs in every season they've had at least 90 points in the standings
This is the fourth time the Devils made the playoffs with more than 90 points but fewer than 100 points. Every single previous season, they lost in the first round.
While the Devils continued one trend that came with a positive result, they are hoping the latter trend doesn't continue. They are going into the playoffs as massive underdogs, but we've seen bigger underdogs come out of the first round before. A series with the Hurricanes will have ups and downs.
The Devils have been terrible against Carolina in the playoffs. They are the last team to knock them out of the postseason. There are quite a number of demons they have to extinguish if they are going to make noise come next week.