HIGHLIGHTS
- New Jersey Devils officially eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday, for the 11th time in 14 seasons
- A 15-25-1 mid-season collapse after Jack Hughes broke his hand in November ended any chance of a run
- Full breakdown of what went wrong, the coaching situation, and what a big offseason looks like below
The Devils are out.
New Jersey was officially eliminated from playoff contention Tuesday night, ending a season that never really recovered from the moment Jack Hughes broke his hand on a glass at a team dinner in Chicago back in November.
That is the 11th time in 14 seasons New Jersey has missed the postseason. A franchise that went to five straight finals from 1994 to 2003 and won three Cups keeps cycling in and out of relevance without fully committing to one direction or the other.
Last year they made the playoffs and lost to Carolina in the first round in five games. The year before that they missed entirely. The year before that they set a franchise record with 52 wins. There is enough talent on this roster. The problem is consistency, and this season the consistency disappeared the moment Hughes went down.
The season started 13-4-1 and genuinely looked like something. Then surgery, eight weeks off the ice, and a 15-25-1 stretch that buried them. They finished around 40-34-3 and roughly 14 points off the last wild card spot in the East.
The offseason has already started. Tom Fitzgerald was fired Monday as president of hockey operations and general manager after the season fell apart.
The core is still worth believing in. Jack Hughes has 34 points in 19 games since the Olympics, Nico Hischier is the real deal, and Timo Meier is a difference-maker on his night. But the goaltending has been a problem all year, depth was never enough, and Brendan Shanahan is already being linked to the president role as the organization tries to reset.
Sheldon Keefe’s future is also a real question. He was hired by Fitzgerald. A new GM may want his own coach. Hughes and Hischier both took responsibility for the season on Tuesday, which was the right thing to do. The work starts now.
