The New Jersey Devils have had no luck for a long time. Since making the Stanley Cup Final in 2012, the Devils made the playoffs three times. Twice, they were wildly outmatched by the Tampa Bay Lightning and Carolina Hurricanes, losing in five games in 2018 and 2025. In 2023, they beat the New York Rangers in the first round, giving them their biggest win since sending them home in the Eastern Conference Finals, but then they had one day of rest before facing the high-powered Hurricanes.
The playoffs is just one example of how the Devils have had bad luck. Another is the history of goaltending since Martin Brodeur retired. After that, he left and played a few games with the St. Louis Blues to ruin the fact he played for one team his whole career. Meanwhile, Cory Schneider’s hip destroyed his career, Corey Crawford retired before playing a game in New Jersey. Mackenzie Blackwood went from promising to off the playoff roster. Vitek Vanecek turned into a pumpkin, as did Jacob Markstrom. Scott Wedgewood was claimed off waivers by the Arizona Coyotes, and now he’s leading the Stanley Cup favorite.Â
More bad luck. The Devils traded for 40-goal scorer Timo Meier, paid him close to $9 million per season, but now he’s not even a 30-goal scorer. And let’s focus on that for a moment. Meier has often been at the top of the league for individual xG for years. This past season, he was second to Anders Lee and just ahead of Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid for second in the league, according to Natural Stat Trick.Â
Meier’s shooting percentage this season at 5v5 was 6.74%. That’s… insane. Ondrej Palat had a much better shooting percentage than Meier, who was brought to the Devils to add scoring and toughness in one package. He’s still tough, but the scoring is inconsistent at best.Â
Meier’s shooting percentage has been between 8 and 10 percent at 5v5, with a little better once it adds power-play shooting. If he shot two percent better, he’d have had eight more goals at 5v5 alone.Â
He’s hardly alone. The Calgary Flames are the only team in the league that shot worse than the Devils this season. No team shot worse on high-danger shots in the league.Â
The median shooting percentage this season belongs to the Vegas Golden Knights, who hit the back of the net on 11.13 percent of their shots. If the Devils shot that percentage this season, they’d have 44 more goals. That’s obviously worth it on its own to make the playoffs. It would change the Devils from a -24 goal differential to a +20. Even Jacob Markstrom isn’t messing that up.
The Devils weren’t even getting bad chances. They had the 12th-most high-danger chances in the NHL.Â
We don’t like to talk about luck in sports, and the Devils haven’t had luck go their way for years, as proven by Jack Hughes’s injury history, but this specific statistic has to turn for the Devils.
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