The New Jersey Devils are trying to figure out what’s wrong with the offense. After getting back Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, and Arseny Gritsyuk on Sunday night against the Buffalo Sabres, they scored one goal. They also only got themselves one power play chance. It was a putrid offensive performance after the first period.
The Devils were at home, and they got their reinforcements back. Scoring one goal in that situation against a flawed team like the Buffalo Sabres is unacceptable, but it’s just one game. This team will have time to get it’s stuff together and learn to play with a full lineup.
On Tuesday, prior to playing against the New York Islanders, practice showed the new lineup that head coach Sheldon Keefe put together. There were some big changes aimed at spreading the offense out across the top nine. The most obvious change was a shake-up of the top six.
Changes for #NJDevils coming up against the Islanders... though they are familiar lines the team has played with this season, like reuniting Gritsyuk, Glass, and Brown.
— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) December 23, 2025
Defense staying the same.
Here's a look at the morning skate lines and pairings: pic.twitter.com/476XlWIudu
The Devils broke up Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt, which makes sense because both are in a pretty significant scoring slump. Bratt and Dawson Mercer switched places. Nobody is going to lose sleep over Keefe switching those players. As long as Mercer stays away from the center position, then it should work out.
The change that’s going to cause the most alarm and frustration is moving Ondrej Palat back into the top six, once again as the partner to Jack Hughes. Palat has seven points this season in 36 games. He’s on average scoring one goal a month. It’s actually less than that, but he’s been close a few times recently.
There is a dichotomy happening with the Palat-Hughes pairing this season. When they are on the ice, which amounts to 113 minutes according to Natural Stat Trick, the Devils have scored nine goals and allowed six goals. That’s good! Hughes without Palat has been on the ice has only seen five goals scored and that same six goals against. That’s not so good.
However, that might amount to luck. With Palat, Hughes has been on the ice for 21 high-dangers chances and 24 high-danger chances against. His xG for is 5.25 and 5.72 against. Without Palat, Hughes has been on the ice for 35 high-danger chances and 26 chances against. His xG without Palat is 7.99.
Of his 35 high-danger chances without Palat, Hughes has been on the ice for one high-danger goal. Over the course of the season, that was going to even out. Meanwhile, Hughes is scoring about as much as we’d expect with Palat as his partner.
Who knows? Maybe Palat plays an important role in taking care of the things we don’t see when he’s on the ice with Hughes. What we do know is the Devils need offense, and we’re not sure this is the ticket to more offense, but we’re willing to wait and see.