I guess it is time to start buying into the New Jersey Devils

They look LEGIT; but are they?

The New Jersey Devils are one of those teams that needed to show me something before I totally bought into them. Not just this season, but in any recent season.

They have a really good collection of young talent in Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Jesper Bratt.

Every year they seem to make a huge splash in the offseason that makes you think, okay, this is going to be a turning point for the franchise.

And every year they fall on their face and do nothing. After dominating the NHL for most of the 1990s and early/mid-2000s, they have mostly been irrelevant for the past decade.

But those days seem to be gone, as the Devils are now the hottest team in the NHL and riding an 11-game winning streak into the weekend. They have opened up a six-point lead in the Metropolitan Division, and while there is still a lot of hockey to be played between now and the playoffs they have at least put themselves in a position to secure a playoff spot.

If nothing else, they have given themselves a cushion for any sort of slump or regression that might come over the next few months.

It’s really difficult to make up ground in the NHL standings after a certain point, and teams that are as far out in front of the pack as the Devils are buy American Thanksgiving tend to have a high probability of making the playoffs.

But the most stunning thing about the Devils’ early success? It does not seem to be a fluke. Everything is cooking for them and they look like they might be the real deal.