Diagnosing the Devils

As we embark on the 2nd half of the 2025-26 season, there is a ton going wrong for the Devils. Injuries, management, player regression, scoring slumps – we’ve had a full NJ Diner Menu of issues on and off ice.

My track record as a blogging mush is pretty strong: I wrote this blog about Dougie and this blog about the D-Corps and neither have aged particularly well. And don’t get me started on my gambling track record on ATG scorers this season. So, I thought I’d try and reverse engineer things and write about everything these guys do that is bad. So they’ll be good. Got it? Cool.

The Devils just can’t seem to put it all together at once. We brought in good depth scoring (Glass, Brown, Gritsyuk), but the core group disappeared/got hurt. The goaltending was brutal and the defense were turnstiles, but we scored enough to stay in games. They tighten up at 5v5, but the power play and PK fall apart. The goalies start playing well, but they can’t score at all. We’ve seen bits and pieces of a good team and an occasional complete game, but it’s been a season and a half of this group never excelling in all aspects of the game at at the same time game in and game out.

And I think that’s the frustrating part. The most consistent part of this team is their inconsistency. They couldn’t win 4 in a row for almost 2 years. They did it this year with an 8 game streak, then gave it all back with a 5 game losing streak, and 3 in a row more recently. Since the beginning of 24-25 we’ve seen great individual performances in moments, but not for long enough stretches that offset cold streaks. While it still could theoretically come together, we now have enough evidence that they need to prove it to us, as fans, that this is a team worth our emotional capital.

I don’t think it is productive to try and blame or single out individual players, to a man it has not been good enough. Coaching isn’t off the hook either as Gerard wrote here and while it seems that the bulk of the fanbase wants a management change, ownership has indicated there are no changes imminent in the front office. Simply put, it needs to get better on the ice and a real conversation about this group being capable has already started.

The first step in that is diagnosing their on-ice play and laying out shortcomings in each facet of the game that sees us mired in mediocrity. Games are won on the margins, this difference between the best teams and worst teams are a few percentage points in every area of the game. Those little percentage points, the marginal difference between Colorado and New Jersey in the D zone, Neutral zone, and offensive zone add up.

I’m sure every Devil fan who is active online has seen an alarming stat about this team – they are dead last in 5v5 scoring in the calendar year 2025. Over that same time period they are right in the mushy middle at 15th in goals against (a -30 goal differential), and have 82 points in 80 games. What has led to them being so average? Using data from All Three Zones (A3Z) combined with my own anecdotal observations, I tried to piece together what is failing this team.

It all Starts in the Defensive Zone

It’s no secret the Devils preference is to generate offense from their rush and transition play and that all starts in the defensive zone. How many times have you groaned as a Devil defenseman retrieves the puck only to get it stripped? Or they rim the puck up the boards that the wings can’t handle? Or the wing loses a 50/50 battle at the point or half wall? Or just have a forward flat out do something incredibly stupid right inside the blue line? Are we bad a this? Does every team have these same issues?

Well, we are indeed bad at it. Courtesy of Corey Sznajder’s micro stat tracking project A3Z, since 2023 the Devils have averaged just over 14 failed clears per game, about a 78% success rate. That puts them in the bottom 3rd of the entire league – ranked 25th. For context Carolina is 1st at 83% and league average is around 80%. Those percent differences may not seem like a lot but that 83% for Carolina is under 10 failed clears per game. The difference between 10 and 14 clears per game adds up, and can be another 2 minutes+ per game further pinned in the D-zone. These are the margins that win and lose games.

There are two primary ways to exit the zone – and there is no real right or wrong way to do things. Carolina and Edmonton are the best two teams at it, and you can see how personnel and systems show up in this data. Carolina only exits the D zone with possession about 60% of the time, instead going high off the glass and out and/or using high flips – relying on their pressure based system to get it back. Conversely, Edmonton exits the zone about 75% of the time with possession because McDavid and Draisatl.

The Devils seem like they try and fall into the controlled exit camp, but our a large chunk of our personnel doesn’t seem to have the skill set to be successful. First, half our D Corps are good defensively but are generally black holes in terms of puck moving and just launch grenade after grenade at our forwards. Say what you want about Severson and Marino but they could pass the puck. The rest of the group include a guy who has regressed, a couple of kids who haven’t take the next step yet and struggle heavily with retrievals, and a couple injury fill-ins (unironically one of which has been our steadiest defender).

The forwards aren’t off the hook here either, as I have noticed repeatedly that the wings are often on the wrong side of the puck. After one of our defenseman throw a rim up the boards, one of three things happens too frequently: 1) the other’s wing is below them to intercept or 2) it goes straight through to the D at the point who keeps it in or 3) the wing loses the battle along the boards and possession. If we do somehow get possession, I have seen every single forward on this team try and do something that you are taught not to do in peewees – turn it over at the blue line.

We Have Lost All of Our Neutral Zone Pace

There isn’t a lot of data to point to for neutral zone play, but one thing that stands out to me is they rank #18th in speed bursts over 20mph – and speed often peaks in the neutral zone. It’s almost like they refuse to play a fast break style and would much prefer to run a half court offense; Their first instinct is to retreat and regroup almost ALWAYS. And even after they retain possession, the defenseman wait… and wait…and wait to finally throw a grenade (sorry I’m overusing this word) to a covered wing for a tip-dump.

In my opinion, there are two things at play that here – one is the interconnectivity with the D zone. These regroups are often happening on a line change since they just got pinned in the zone, so the defenseman HAVE to wait for forwards to change. The other is where I will point to systems and philosophy: they take too long to execute a structured regroup. The time the Devils take on their regroups is very easy to cover since the opponent is able to set their ideal spacing and gaps. You will see the forwards coming down and circling, with one remaining up high. This is what leads to the grenade-tip-dump sequence almost every time as the two forwards circling down almost never get a quick 5 foot pass to start the transition up ice. It is too easy to defend and too easily predictable. I’d like to see faster transitions – don’t wait for all the forwards to perfectly execute their routes. Turn it up ice. Take advantage of the other team in disarray. A quick strike pass. Play with more instinct and more pace, force bad gaps, bad spacing and mistakes. This is what Florida excelled at in the playoffs and the Devils are too passive and too dependent on structured transitions.

A more anecdotal issue that I see a lot of is just flat out bad passing through the neutral zone. The amount of bricked 5-10 foot passes, in the skates/behind/ahead are too many. We lack so much crispness in our ability to pass, and this goes back to our D-Corps not being great pucks movers. And when they do put a good tape-to-tape pass together, far too often it’s a poorly timed borderline buddy pass, or the forward just can’t catch it cleanly. The Devils are the second worst team in giving up shots off of neutral zone turnovers, which is a direct indictment of their passing through the zone.

What’s interesting, is they are actually a very good neutral zone defensive team. Using the same A3Z micro stat data, they allow the second fewest carries into the zone against, and are seventh in denying chances at the blue line. Basically teams are forced (choose?) to dump the puck in on us. The Devils are middle of the pack on retrievals and botched retrievals, which leads to us being the 12th worst team at retrievals leading to zone exits. So basically, we are good at stopping the rush, but struggle against dump ins, which then leads to poor zone exits and we are back at the D-zone section above.

Why Can’t We Score?

Sigh. We have enough good players with high end scoring track records: 40 goal scorers, 30 goal scorers, 20 goal scorers. But as mentioned above, they have been dead last in even strength scoring over the 2025 calendar year. Yes, a lot of that has been spent with Jack Hughes. But is this team the worst scoring team without one player? They shouldn’t be. And We DID get the depth scoring we needed added to this roster in Gritsyuk, Glass, and Brown.

I do see some structural issues that infect this team top to bottom and it is primarily because they are far too perimeter a team. Very few players on this team seem to have an appetite to drop their shoulder and drive to the slot or net front. Very few seem to have an appetite for planting themselves in front and taking abuse. Very few seem to have a deflection skill set, or a flash screen skill set. We have one rebound goal this season at 5v5, which is last by a lot, and are 21st at creating rebound chances. They are in the bottom 3rd in getting shots blocked, with nearly 30% at 5v5 and 28% in all situations. This tells me they are shooting too much from distance, relying on point shots to generate volume, and not getting to the net to pick up the trash. You can see this in their shot map on NHL Edge. Cliches exist for a reason, but if you go the net you’ll get chances, and we aren’t doing that enough.

The personnel side of their scoring issues is falls into two parts – our D Corps lacks offensive talent, and our forward group lacks pure finishing talent. Of our two most relied on offensive defensemen, Dougie’s shot has regressed significantly and Luke’s gets blocked 48% of the time, by far the league leader. Up front, we just don’t have a top tier sniper that can pick corners or find soft spots – we have not replaced that skill set brought by Toffoli. Grits is likely on his way, but he is still getting his feet wet. Jack is a good shooter, but relies more on volume, Timo is a pure volume shooter, Bratt has a muffin that is a magnet for the goalie’s crest, Nico – no idea what’s going on there…. you get the drift. And guess what? We have the 2nd worst shooting percentage in the league over this calendar year, 7.5%, while A3Z shows the Devils creating the most scoring chances and being top 6 rush offense and top 4 cycle/forecheck offense. This tells me we have a unique collection of bad shooters.

Final Thoughts

While I did add some player names in here, this is meant to be an indictment that starts at the top with Harris and Blitzer and extends to each and every coach and player. It’s hard to blame one thing or another, or one guy or another when the game is so interconnected. Wins happen on the margins, and we are losing there in all three zones. It needs to get better, we need to see a complete game for multiple games in a row. We need to get back to our speed, and we REALLY need to find the back of the net.

Simple right? What do you think? Am I overreacting, is our newfound health going to buoy us and send us on a tear? Is there anything play-style or system that you disagree with or that I missed?

LGD