Better luck next year: The New Jersey Devils wasted a big year of their window

The window is still open, but this season just really seems like a huge missed opportunity.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The New Jersey Devils.

The New Jersey Devils should have not only been a legitimate Stanley Cup contender this season, they should have been one of the TOP Stanley Cup contenders in the NHL.

Almost everything about this team seemed loaded.

They have a legit superstar in Jack Hughes.

They had built an extremely talented roster with top-line players like Nico Hischier, Dougie Hamilton, Timo Meier, and Jesper Bratt.

All of their underlying numbers and possession numbers from the 2022-23 season were elite. Their 112 points in the standings were the third most in the league, while they ranked second in expected goal share, scoring chance share and high-danger scoring chance share. Their 5-on-5 goal differential was fourth-best in the league.

They had a great pipeline of young talent rising through the system in Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec and Dawson Mercer.

Even more than all of that, just about all of their top players are signed to contracts that are probably below market value, giving them the flexibility to add another top-line player in the offseason in Tyler Toffoli.

It was all in place.

They should have been ready to take over the Eastern Conference because on paper it was one one of the most impressive rosters in the NHL — at least as far as the forwards and defense were concerned.

It did not happen. At least not yet. The Devils were officially eliminated from playoff contention earlier this week and enter play on Thursday as a .500 team, on track to regress by 32 standings points, while their dominant 5-on-5 numbers have mostly fallen to the middle of the pack. How does something like that happen to such a promising, talented and young team in just one season? It was a brutal combination of some bad luck, some bad coaching, and a terrible misevaluation by the front office that is still difficult to comprehend.

Let’s talk about it all.

Everything that went wrong