Pittsburgh Penguins
Starter
Metro Moves: 2025-26 New Jersey Devils preview
Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66850/metro-moves-2025-26-new-jersey-devils-preview
Sticking in the great New York City area to complete the Metro part of the Metropolitan Division after completing previews on the Rangers and Islanders, today we turn to the New Jersey Devils.
The Devils are a team looking for more entering 2025-26. They (barely) qualified for the playoffs last season, but had enough key injuries to be a non-factor in a first round loss. New Jersey is a testament to a build-through-the-draft rebuild, having acquired six top-10 picks from 2015-22; including picking first overall twice and adding, a second, fourth, sixth and seventh overall pick along the way.
It looked like the rebuild was taking flight after a first round series win in 2023, however some injury luck has turned bad and NJ failed to qualify for the playoffs in 2024 and then eeked into the final spot in the Metropolitan Division last season (by two points over Cinderella Columbus) and quickly bowed out. The time is now to compete and rise from a mid-range team into one of the better ones in the conference. Or it should be, anyways.
Key changes
Additions: It’s been a quiet summer in New Jersey. Connor Brown parlayed an excellent playoff with Edmonton (5 goals + 4 assists in 20 games) into a $12 million contract over four years to come add some depth to the Devils. They also brought on Evgenii Dadonov — who scored a tidy (and surprisingly high) 20 goals and 20 assists for Dallas last season — to a very team-friendly deal of a $1.0 million contract for one year. The Devils also signed their 2019 fourth-round draft pick, Russian forward Arseni Gritsyuk (44 points in 49 KHL games last season).
Losses: Not much to speak of either. The Devs dropped forward Erik Haula in a trade to Nashville for a draft pick to clear some salary space, and saw a few free agents who were either minor pieces or short-term adds depart over the summer (Tomas Tatar, Curtis Lazar, Brian Dumoulin).
Projected lineup (from nhl.com)
Ondrej Palat — Jack Hughes — Jesper Bratt
Timo Meier — Nico Hischier — Stefan Noesen
Arseni Gritsyuk — Dawson Mercer — Connor Brown
Paul Cotter — Cody Glass — Evgenii Dadonov
Brenden Dillon / Dougie Hamilton
Luke Hughes* / Brett Pesce
Jonas Siegenthaler / Simon Nemec
Jacob Markstrom
Jake Allen
Hughes is still to-be-signed as a restricted free agent, but expected to be wrapped up in time for the season. Defender Johnathan Kovacevic (who signed a $20 million, five year contract extension earlier this year) will miss the start of the season recovering from knee surgery. As an aside, the Devils have a real gift from Jack Hughes playing on a long-term contract worth $8.0 million per year (considered the best value contract in the whole league), but they take that gift and use the excess on pieces like Kovacevic, Brown and Cody Glass (resigned for $2.5m). Will that be enough or wise usage of the extra space? We shall see!
The injury bug has been a tough opponent to wrangle so far. Between both Hughes boys, Hamilton and Siegenthaler, there’s a bad penchant for getting hurt at the key time of year popping up with unfortunate frequency. Even Bratt had to have shoulder surgery shortly after the end of last season. If that luck changes this year, so too could the fate for the end of their season.
Beyond that, the trade adds for NJ will go a long way to determining their success. Markstrom was only OK at best last season, his first in Jersey. Ditto Meier, who has been a good add but perhaps not as much of a revelation and transformative one as initially expected and hoped. Hamilton has even had his name included in some trade whispers (fairly or not). If those three have big years and they can keep the Hughes boys in the lineup, NJD’s fortunes surely look a lot brighter.
—
Potential Outcomes
Here we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..
Reasonable best case scenario — The Devils have health, and become a big problem for the rest of the division and conference with their skill, depth and head coach Sheldon Keefe. Markstrom plays more like he did earlier in his career in Calgary to give them an above average netminder, and the young defense of L. Hughes, Simon Nemec and prospect Seamus Casey give some extra juice. New Jersey rolls to 100+ points and is right there contending with Carolina for the top spot in the division.
Reasonable worst case scenario — 1-2 of the Hughes brothers is out down the stretch. Those veterans mentioned above (Markstrom, Hamilton, Meier) are not huge impact players or making a big positive difference, for whatever reason. The young players don’t shine and the Palat/Noesen level players have a down year. The inconsistencies continue and NJ is fighting for a playoff spot come April, instead of being comfortably in one.
—
The Devils have good players like Hughes, Hischier and Bratt in their prime. They have plenty of skill to round out the team. While they might not be an obvious pick as a championship contender that has no holes or weaknesses, NJ should be more of a top-5 team in the conference during the regular season rather than a middle-5 one.
Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66850/metro-moves-2025-26-new-jersey-devils-preview
: