No team in the National Hockey League has had a more up-and-down season than Newark's very own New Jersey Devils.
The Devils have won 9 of their last 12 games, with their two most recent victories coming over both the Dallas Stars, who have already clinched a playoff berth, and the Nashville Predators, who currently hold the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. Despite beating playoff-caliber teams, the chance of New Jersey making the playoffs is next to none. Even though they have one fewer point than the Predators in the standings, they're victims of the stacked Eastern Conference, which has them buried 11 points behind the New York Islanders for the last Wild Card spot.
The season has been a rollercoaster for the team, and Devils fans are going to be left wondering, "Where does this team go from here?" for the entire offseason. There have been moments of greatness, stretches of disappointment, a lackluster trade deadline, and injury problems throughout the year. With only one playoff series win in the past 5 years, the countdown may have begun for general manager Tom Fitzgerald before the team's core falls apart.
Talent isn't the issue on the current roster. Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and Timo Meier can be deadly on offense when they get hot, but the problem is staying hot. After their impressive start in the first half of the season, several hiccups happened over the course of the year that derailed the momentum the team was establishing.
The infamous Hughes injury after a team dinner, Jesper Bratt having a down year in terms of goalscoring (although his assists are up to par), the Dougie Hamilton debacle, and free agent signings having several games where they are just out there having fun have all factored into the less-than-stellar season. Goaltending issues and lack of offensive support during rough stretches buried the Devils in the standings, but occasional stints of success showed the Devils could be a well-oiled machine if they wanted to be.
The silver lining of this season has been the emergence of young guns Simon Nemec, Lenni Hameenaho, and Arseny Gritsyuk, three players who give it their all every night and look like vital pieces to the team's future. With all the one-year deal players being off the books next season, signing Gritsyuk to an extension should be priority number one going into the offseason. If these three players increase their production going into next year, those short stints of excellence could potentially be more frequent than they were this season.
This year can be summed up in many words: disheartening, underwhelming, substandard, mediocre, take your pick. Every year, the talent on the Devils roster leads experts to believe they'll make playoffs and compete with some of the league's heaviest of hitters, but this year has shown the Eastern Conference is a bloodbath.
If the Devils don't reinforce their offense, particularly their bottom-six, and properly develop their young players, they're going to fall behind the rest of the teams in the East. If the proper minor changes aren't made, the rest of the conference will eat them up and spit them out without a problem. If the team builds enough momentum at the start of the year and the dreaded injury bug doesn't strike the team again, Devils' fans will once again experience hockey in May. What happens in the offseason is uncertain, but one thing is certain: Devils fans want playoff hockey.