When you lose a low-scoring, one-goal game to the 32nd ranked team in the NHL, you know there’s something wrong. That’s where the New Jersey Devils are at right now.
The result? Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe was brutally honest on Sunday, calling his team mentally weak in his assessment of their performance.
The Devils allowed two early power play goal to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday, after two senseless penalties by Dougie Hamilton and Stefan Noesen.
Each penalty kill unit was only deployed for a minute or less, as it didn’t take the Canucks very long to score on the man advantage.
Over the last eight games, the Devils are 2-7-0, and the penalty kill has been brutal. They’ve allowed 10 goals on 21 chances, killing just 52.38% of penalties in that span.
“The PK is just really, really frustrating right now,” Brenden Dillon explained. “It’s losing us hockey games like it did tonight.”
Devils captain, Nico Hischier, echoed the sentiment
“Yeah, we need to figure that out,” Hischier admitted. “Too many goals are being scored on the PK. Obviously, one is the unfortunate bounce, but at the end of the day, the PK has to come up big in some games. It’s no secret in this league, the special team is important. On the flip side, the power play also has to give us at least one or two goals tonight, and we maybe win the game.”
However, whereas Keefe recognizes the penalty kill is a problem, what’s even more concerning is the mentality the Devils bring.
“We couldn’t have had a worse start, both on our play and just how the game went,” Keefe said. “I mean, I think there were three whistles in the first few seconds, or whatever it was. And then we’re short-handed and the pucks in our net now and down 1-0 before over half our teams even touched the ice. Yeah, we made our own bed there. Two minor penalties in the first six minutes or so. We’ve got to find a way to play on back to backs. It’s inexcusable. We’ve got to find a way.”
Certainly, no head coach would have been happy with the Devils’ start on Tuesday. Both Dillon and Hischier referenced the message between the first and second period was, “Move your legs.”
Everyone recognized the Devils shouldn’t have to convince themselves of anything. It should be automatic. That’s the kind of mentality you need to have in order to win in the NHL.
However, Keefe was brutally honest, and explained he thinks his team is mentally weak.
“Talk yourself into it,” Keefe exclaimed. “You’ve got to find the legs. You can tell from the drop of the puck that we didn’t have the same pop as we did yesterday. Maybe some of that is the back to back and all that. But there are teams all around the league that the back to backs don’t phase them. And for our team here, we get defeated too quickly in some of these things. I think there’s a mental component of it that we’ve got to have a lot more toughness to find our way through that.”
The Devils are 1-4-0 in the second half of back to back games this season. It’s not an uncommon trend in New Jersey. Keefe explained you can clearly see the Devils have it in them to move their legs, which means the slow start is more mental than it is physical. However, he characterized them as mentally weak. Thus, the free-fall from grace that was their start to the 2025-26 season.
“I don’t care if it’s back to back. That’s disappointing,” Keefe said. “You can see in the second and third period. We got more legs to get ourselves. But, you can’t wait. You wait, you lose.”
James is the New Jersey Devils beat reporter for New Jersey Hockey Now on Sportsnaut and the PHWAs New … More about James Nichols