3 Things That Must Go Right for the Devils in 2024-25

If it could have gone wrong for the New Jersey Devils in 2023-24, it did. A 112-point, 2022-23 season was always going to be a hard act to follow. However, no one expected the considerable regression the team went through last season, which ultimately saw them miss the playoffs.

Although there were certainly contributing factors that led to their demise that were self-inflicted, there were also factors out of their control. Had the Devils had just a little bit of luck, they would have made last season at least salvageable.

Alas, we cannot change the past. But, the future is certainly shaping up to look quite different. Therefore, we’ll take a look at three things that MUST go right for the Devils in 2024-25 that should see New Jersey return to the playoffs, much like most are predicting.

Stay Healthy

Look, this is the most obvious issue for the Devils walking into next season.

The hits kept on coming in 2023-24. So much so that the Devils only had seven skaters play in 75 games or more last season.

The list of injuries were grand. Dougie Hamilton was the first significant player to go down and miss the remainder of the 2023-24 season in December. Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Timo Meier, Ondrej Palat, Jonas Siegenthaler, and Curtis Lazar were all skaters who also missed a significant chunk of time, and sometimes even overlapped in absence.

And that’s not to mention the multiple stints on the injured reserve that players like Hughes and Meier had.

The injury bug that the Devils were bitten by in the 2023-24 season just wasn’t sustainable. It seemed like every time they began to look a little healthier, someone either re-injured themselves or a new player was put on the shelf.

The Devils will have to hope for two things in 2024-25. First, they can hopefully avoid injuries such as the one Siegenthaler suffered against the New York Rangers.  Matt Rempe‘s elbow to the head sidelined the Devils defenseman for several weeks. Second, incidental injuries such as Hughes who injured himself tripping over his own skates will have to come far less throughout the season in order for Sheldon Keefe to ice the best lineup possible on any given night.

Average Goaltending

Is this equally obvious? Perhaps slightly less?

It seems that heading into next season, the belief is the revamped goaltending in New Jersey is something that is just expected to be a lot better than it was last season.

It’s abundantly true that if the Devils just received even average goaltending for the majority of the 2023-24 season, they might have snuck into the playoffs even with all the injuries they sustained.

Unfortunately, Vitek Vanecek was one of the worst goaltenders in the NHL. Akira Schmid couldn’t replicate the heroics he executed on in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, or for the stints he took over for in the Devils’ crease in 2022-23. And Nico Daws did what he could, but it was a lot to ask of a goaltender who just came off hip replacement surgery to put out the fire in net.

It wasn’t until the Devils acquired Jake Allen and Kaapo Kahkonen that fans started to see that there was a team worth salvaging in New Jersey. However, it was too little too late by the time the goaltending upgrades arrived, and the Devils missed the postseason.

All of Vanecek, Schmid, and Daws registered a 3.15 GAA or worse, as well as an .895 SV% or worse. All of their goals saved above expected (GSAx) were in the negatives. Especially Vanecek who ranked 95th out of 98 goaltenders with a -11.2 GSAx.

The good news is that the Devils goaltending this season is — at least on paper — vastly improved. There’s reason to believe that playing behind a stronger Devils blue line could result in Jacob Markstrom working his way into the Vezina Trophy conversation. And when Markstrom gets a night off, Allen will be there to back him up. It’s not unreasonable to believe that the former Habs goaltender could be a starter on a different team.

There is slight concern with Markstrom’s consistency. He tends to have softer years following a season in which he was really strong. For the Calgary Flames in 2023-24, Markstrom was excellent in registering a 13.9 GSAx which was ninth-best among all goaltenders. However, if he’s at least average, which is really all the Devils should need, the team success should follow.

Timo Meier

General manager Tom Fitzgerald had a checklist of items he wanted to address this summer. He nearly checked every box, however, missed on acquiring a top-six forward.

Last summer, the Devils traded for forward Tyler Toffoli. He was the Devils’ leading goalscorer with 26 tucks before the veteran sniper was dealt at the 2024 trade deadline to the Winnipeg Jets. When Fitzgerald settled for Tomas Tatar after pursuing the likes of Jonathan Marchessault and Steven Stamkos, it raised one question.

Who will replicate Toffoli’s 30-plus goal pace he provided last season? Fitzgerald is banking on that coming internally.

“I wasn’t worried about offense,” Fitzgerald explained to New Jersey Hockey Now on the third day of free agency. “With this group. We’ve got enough offense here.”

“With that being said, you know, a guy like Dawson Mercer is gonna get an opportunity to, to continue to grow and explode, hopefully. And then it’s by committee. You’re hoping that the Tatar’s and Cotter’s and the Noesen’s are all chipping in and that 15-goal [range] to make up the goal difference. But at the end of the day, Jack, Nico, Meier, Bratt, more from Palat offensively. We feel we’ll continue to get that.”

Mercer is certainly a candidate to take a step forward after he regressed from 2022-23’s 27-goal campaign last year. However, of the names mentioned to fill Toffoli’s shoes, Meier could be the most important.

The Devils traded for and made Meier the highest paid forward in New Jersey for a reason. He has the ability to take over a shift, a game, and create offense all on his own. He’s a volume shooter who has a goalscorer’s touch, but knows how to push the puck over the goal line in multiple different ways.

Much like the first point, Meier struggled to stay off the injured list last season. Each time it felt like he was just about to break out, he wound up back on the shelf and lost any momentum he had.

Yet, Meier still led the Devils in 2023-24 in the goals department. He finished the year scoring 28 goals in 69 games — which is a 33-goal pace over 82 games.

Ever since he touched down in New Jersey, the Swiss forward has had his highs and his lows. However, Devils fans have only seen Meier’s potential in spurts. In 2024-25, one of the most important factors for the Devils is for the 27, soon 28-year-old to find consistency in his game and be the dominant player they believed they were acquiring.

If Meier can, in fact, find himself, it’s not unreasonable to see a 40-goal season from the Devils’ richest forward.

Honorable Mention

If there was going to be a fourth item added to the list of things that need to go right next season, it would be that the blue line holds up.

The Devils found out just how bad their defense was in 2023-24 when they lost Hamilton. They were forced to skate Simon Nemec — who outplayed expectations as a rookie — in his place for the remainder of the season, and had John Marino skating as the most veteran presence on a nightly basis.

However, that issue was addressed this summer. Brett Pesce, Brenden Dillon, and Johnathan Kovacevic in addition to Hamilton’s return have created a much deeper blue line than the previous season.

With the expectation that the defense will be much better in 2024-25, it’s not as much of a concern as the aforementioned.

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