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Over the course of the last calendar year, no New Jersey Devils storyline has been more prevalent than their offensive woes.
From Christmas 2024 to Christmas 2025, the Devils ranked 32nd in the National Hockey League in 5v5 goals – dead last. They also ranked 25th in expected goals for per 60 (xGF/60) in that time.
For comparison’s sake, from 2022-24 – the two seasons before Sheldon Keefe became the head coach – the Devils ranked 5th in xGF/60 and 5th in actual goals at 5v5.
To be frank, the core players are simply too talented to be sporting the dismal offensive output that they have been producing over the past season and a half.
It’s not their faults, though – they’ve still been producing goals and points at their typical levels. I also don’t think it’s a coaching issue. To me, the blame falls squarely on the Devils’ front office.
Specifically, the blame falls on the philosophical shift that happened after the Devils were bounced in the second round of the 2023 Playoffs – a series, mind you, that likely would have had a drastically different outcome were the Devils not traveling to a well-rested Carolina Hurricanes team within 48 hours of a seven-game series.
The opinion of the loud few seemed to be that the fast-paced, high-octane team that broke regular season records and gave the Devils their first playoff series victory since 2012 was too soft to play “playoff-style” hockey.
The Devils’ front office seemed all too eager to cater to that demographic, and it has neutered their offense over time.
Over the course of two seasons, the Devils made the following choices:
Shifted from a puck-moving-focused defense with players like Damon Severson and John Marino to a heavier, more “playoff-oriented” defense with Brenden Dillon and Brett Pesce as their replacements.
Catered their bottom-six to playing physical, slow hockey.
(Correctly) addressed the need for a top-six sniper in acquiring Tyler Toffoli and then (incorrectly) moved off of him without having a replacement plan.
Changed coaching systems from the high-flying, rush-centric, possession-based Lindy Ruff system to the methodical, defense-into-offense Sheldon Keefe system.
The biggest issue currently plaguing the Devils, in my eyes, is on the back end.
With Dougie Hamilton now being deployed in a primarily defensive role and neither Luke Hughes nor Simon Nemec taking the step forward into high-caliber offensive defensemen, they drastically lack players who can move the puck forward from the back end.
Dillon and Pesce have been truly excellent this season, but neither one of them are puck-movers by any means.
Even the Devils’ less important defensemen were all capable of getting the puck up-ice without just throwing it aimlessly out of the zone.
Obviously, Severson and Marino were excellent skaters and puck-movers from the back end, but the likes of Ryan Graves, Santeri Hatakka, Nick DeSimone, and Collin Miller were also capable of executing high-quality stretch passes with some regularity.
Of course, Jonas Siegenthaler and Brendan Smith were grenade handlers in their own zone, but instead of having just two of those players, the Devils now have three and a half (Siegenthaler, Dillon, Pesce and Johnathan Kovacevic).
In 2022-23, the Devils had some of the best depth options in the league. Michael McLeod was putting his skills together and turning into arguably the best fourth-line center in the NHL.
Players like Miles Wood, Curtis Lazar, and Jesper Boqvist contributed to the rush offense in a depth setting through some combination of skill (mainly Boqvist here) and speed. Tomas Tatar was skillful and played at a high-octane pace.
The Devils got rid of a lot of that speed in the bottom six by factors both in their control (losing Wood and Boqvist) and out of their control (losing McLeod).
The problem isn’t that those players were gone, it’s that they weren’t replaced with players who had similar qualities.
Instead, the pivot was to heavy, physical hockey. Stefan Noesen, Kurtis MacDermid, Luke Glendening, Juho Lammikko, and Paul Cotter were added in their stead.
There is an iota of skill there with Cotter’s occasional flashy play, but his bread and butter has been and always will be the physicality.
Noesen has struggled in his Devils’ career outside of his impact as a netfront presence on the power play, and Glendening, Lammikko, and MacDermid should simply be nowhere near NHL ice.
Outside of Cotter, who has some burst ability but an average top-end speed, the Devils have certainly missed out on the speed they once had, and it is neutering their offense from a depth perspective.
Adding Toffoli in 2023 was an excellent choice by GM Tom Fitzgerald – he sold high on an asset likely to not replicate his production elsewhere (Yegor Sharangovich) and brought in someone who could meaningfully contribute as a primary scoring option to Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes for, presumably, years to come.
Their mistake was two-fold: 1) getting rid of Toffoli in the first place, and 2) not replacing his archetype with someone else the following offseason.
The lack of another complementary scoring piece has bit the Devils hard for two seasons now, as they have been forced to play Ondrej Palat – who never should have been signed to that contract in the first place – in that role instead.
Watching Bratt and Hughes execute intricate passing plays that simply die on Palat’s stick has been the bane of many a watcher’s existence.
Part of this issue, to me, is indeed within the system. Keefe’s methodical “fight the panic” approach of playing it safe in his own zone has, to some extent, stymied the Devils’ ability to produce off the rush. The bulk of the issue with the Devils’ scoring issues, though, lie in their roster construction.
Keefe’s systems, historically, have produced many, many goals. In his five seasons with Toronto, the Leafs finished 3rd, 2nd, 2nd, 8th, and 1st in 5v5 goals.
Of course, he was playing with the Core Four of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and John Tavares, but the Devils’ own “core four” of Jack, Bratt, Nico Hischier, and Timo Meier are elite in their own right.
They’re not quite the caliber of what Toronto had but they’re far too good to be finishing dead last in the league in 5v5 goals.
The problem is certainly in the roster that the Devils are icing on a nightly basis. They have a group of defensemen who are several steps behind what they were from a puck-moving capacity years ago.
It took them a calendar year to find a replacement for most of what McLeod brought to the table (Cody Glass) while sacrificing skill and speed in their depth for players with grit, jam, physicality, heart, and playoff pedigree.
They never truly found a top-six player to play alongside Jack and Bratt after trading Toffoli (though perhaps Gritsyuk can be that player in time).
As our good friend CJ Turtoro said, the Devils were building the Avalanche-East. Instead of leaning into the strengths of their core, they pivoted, and instead turned into Leafs-South.
Instead of being a speedy, skilled team capable of steamrolling its opponents – the team the Devils were and could have built upon – they turned too far in the direction of “being harder to play against,” neutering their offense in the process.
Perhaps there is another internal switch-up as a reaction to the team struggling to score, but the clock is ticking.
Changes for the betterment of the group need to happen, and they need to happen imminently.