The Carolina Hurricanes have long stood in the way of the New Jersey Devils when it comes to being the crown jewel of the Metropolitan Division, but they aren't the only ones.
According to one veteran Devils forward, the team is getting in its own way, and apparently has been for a few seasons now.
After the Devils' hapless 5-2 loss to the Hurricanes on Saturday night, top offseason addition Connor Brown offered his thoughts on the effectively one-sided rivalry as a former outsider turned Devil.
"There's some things that happened throughout the game, and some emotions got high and were just handled poorly throughout the game," Brown, 32, was quoted as saying by Devils team reporter Amanda Stein. "When you have scars against a team, sometimes it can be that much harder to manage. So, it's a big learning moment for this team.
"To learn, you have to identify what's going wrong. You can't just say, 'Oh, we gotta overcome this,' or 'We gotta beat this team.' It's like, well, why? Why is this team having the success they've had against us? It's certainly not unfixable. It's very fixable, so that's what we gotta take out of tonight."
The Devils, of course, lost to the Hurricanes in five games in both 2023 and 2025, albeit the 2023 series was preceded by a spirited seven-game comeback effort against the archrival New York Rangers.
I followed this Brown answer with what is that “Why?”
— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) March 29, 2026
Respectfully, Brown did not want to get in to details, but did say:
“We have good players. The margins are slim and there's a couple tweaks between the ears that this club needs to take. I'm very optimistic that we will.” https://t.co/CxyEt1UxBL
Since then, the Hurricanes have been the Devils' bogey team, and Brown, who was a member of the Edmonton Oilers squad that lost to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final in back-to-back years, knows a thing or two about that.
The speedster was also on the Toronto Maple Leafs teams that lost to the Boston Bruins in seven games in the first round in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
So, yeah. Brown is perfectly qualified to speak on the subject, even though he himself has not been able to escape it with the two-year pitstop in Edmonton.
“We have good players. The margins are slim, and there's a couple tweaks between the ears that this club needs to take," Brown added. "I'm very optimistic that we will.”
Of the current Devils group, only Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Jesper Bratt, Dawson Mercer, Luke Hughes, Dougie Hamilton, and Jonas Siegenthaler remain from the 2023 squad.
Jack has taken a demonstrable step forward since the Olympics, though each player has taken an equal amount of flak from the Devils fanbase over time. Brown obviously didn't get into detail with the "tweaks" he referred to, so it's something that will have to stay in the locker room for now.
But the 32-year-old has said what we've all been thinking for a few years now. The Devils have the talent, but if they can't sufficiently adjust mentally, the operation will be doomed.