The New Jersey Devils have a lot to blame for the disappointment that is the 2025-26 season. The injuries are at the top of the list, with Cody Glass, Luke Hughes, Jack Hughes, Stefan Noesen, and Zack MacEwen all out of the lineup right now. It’s easier to count the players who haven’t missed any games this year (Dawson Mercer, Jonas Siegenthaler, Brenden Dillon, Nico Hischier, and Jesper Bratt, plus technically Jake Allen).
Other factors that have cost the Devils games are the inconsistencies of Jacob Markstrom, the dreadful Devils special teams in the middle of the season, and a lack of any real move by Tom Fitzgerald until he traded Ondrej Palat this week. However, the Devils’ lack of real scoring is as important as even the injuries for why the team is where it is in the standings.
The scoring issues go up and down the lineup. Nobody on the team is on pace for 30 goals. Hischier leads the team in goals, and he has just 18 on the year, which is a 27-goal pace. Next on the list is 13 (!!!) goals. That’s ridiculous.
Four players are tied with 13 goals. Jesper Bratt is having his worst season in a long time on the scoresheet. His statistics are problematic, but they aren’t the biggest issue. That belongs to Timo Meier.
See, Meier is still one of those players doing a lot right, but the one thing that got him close to $9 million a year was his goal scoring. Since signing that eight-year deal, he’s failed to reach 30 goals. He likely won’t hit it this year, with just 13 goals through January.
However, the one chance he has to reach that unlikely milestone is the return of March Meier.
March Meier is coming for the New Jersey Devils
Last year, Meier had seven goals in March. This was after scoring zero goals in February. In 2023-24, Meier had 13 goals in March. That is how many goals he has this entire season.
This year, we’re setting up for another explosive March for Meier. He is shooting 7.8% this season. That’s way below his average of 10.6% over his career and the around 12% he’s been shooting for the past decade. If he was shooting what he shot last season (10.9%), he’d have 18 goals by now. If he shot what he did two years ago (13.5%), he’d have 22 goals.
We don’t want to keep bringing up the bad luck of Timo Meier, but there’s really not much more of an explanation. Meier is putting himself in a spot to score. He’s in the 98th percentile in terms of total shots on goal this season, and 48 of those shots come from very high-danger areas.
This is all going to work towards the law of averages. Meier is going to explode because he just hasn’t playing that bad. Things will even out when everyone returns from the Olympics.