This is the sixth and final part of the All About the Jersey multi-part season preview of the 2024-25 New Jersey Devils season. The staff of AAtJ gives their thoughts about the upcoming season and makes some predictions.
Thank you for reading through our multi-part season preview of the New Jersey Devils for the 2024-25 season. For those who want to revisit some or all of it, here is a link to each part:
- Part 0: The Bigger Picture
- Part 1: The Forwards
- Part 2: The Goaltenders
- Part 3: The Defensemen
- Part 4: The Special Teams
- Part 5: The Coaching & Management
This part is our traditional and annual post predicting what will happen. And I shall begin with traditional guarantees of what will happen this season. If only to remind ourselves of what will happen in an 82-game season.
- The New Jersey Devils will sometimes play well and win some of those games.
- The New Jersey Devils will sometimes play like trash and lose some of those games.
- The New Jersey Devils will sometimes play well but somehow lose those games.
- The New Jersey Devils will sometimes play like trash but somehow win those games.
- Good results will happen thanks to uncontrollable and favorable bounces.
- Bad results will happen thanks to uncontrollable and unfavorable bounces.
- Some players will get injured.
- Some players will come back from some of those injuries.
- Short of a global pandemic, at least 82 games will be played in the 2024-25 season.
- Life is not fair. Neither is hockey.
With that out of the way: predictions. Our track record of our predictions is not that great. We mostly thought 2022-23 was not going to go well. It went wonderfully. We largely thought last season would be a continuation of the Devils being contenders in the Eastern Conference. We were proven very wrong. The point is that if you think we are off-base in what we are predicting now for 2024-25, then you have every right to feel that way. History is on your side. That said, I would like to think that some of you, the People Who Matter, will want us to be right this time around.
James Tracy
Season Thoughts: I’m hopeful this year. Though, I said that before last season too and we all know how that turned out. It’s easy to write off last year as a fluke. With all the injuries to key players, perhaps it was. Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald patched up most of the other perceived problems this summer, hired a new coach, brought in a new goalie tandem, added new defenders who actually play defense and sprinkled into our roster some forwards who are tougher to play against. We’ll see how it plays out. I’m hopeful, but cautiously so.
A Bold Prediction: Devils finish the season with four (4) players over 30 goals, one of whom, eclipses 40.
X Factor: Injuries. Simon Nemec going down (at the time of this protection) is an ominous sign. Wil Jack Hughes’ shoulder hold up? That’s the real question.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 2nd in the Metropolitan Division and make the playoffs.
Alex Potts
Season Thoughts: This is a make-or-break year for Tom Fitzgerald. The Devils have a strong, young core that most NHL teams should be envious of. But it is on the GM to put players around that core to fuel success, and at least last season, Fitzgerald failed in that mission. You never want to throw all the blame on a GM, as the players still need to perform in the end, and the coaches need to do their jobs too. But with a new coach in place this year, the hot seat now moves further up the food chain. I like the team Fitzgerald has assembled, and barring some serious injuries, NJ should be improved and compete beyond 82 games. But crazier things have happened.
A Bold Prediction: Jack Hughes will break 100 points this season. He ended with 99 two seasons ago and was on pace for 98 last season if he played all 82. This year, he stays healthy enough and improves enough to get over the 100 point barrier.
X Factor: Goaltending, obviously. How much better is the position with Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen? If it is as improved as we all hope, this is a playoff team.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 2nd in the Metropolitan Division and make the playoffs.
Jackson Baird
Season Thoughts: I expect the Devils to be a playoff team this year, plain and simple. Yes the usual caveats for injuries remain, as it does for every team. But outside of a ridiculous run of bad injury luck, there is no reason this team shouldn’t end up in the postseason. I won’t hear excuses about goaltending anymore, as a tandem of Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen is a massive upgrade over Vitek Vanecek, Mackenzie Blackwood, and Akira Schmid. The stars should continue to produce as they usually do, especially if Dougie Hamilton and, to a lesser extent, Timo Meier can stay healthy this season. Add in improvement from youngsters like Simon Nemec and (eventually) Luke Hughes, and there is far too much talent on this team to not make the postseason. Sheldon Keefe proved himself to be a good coach in Toronto, and now he needs to find a way to make it work in New Jersey. No more excuses, time for this franchise to produce some sustained success. I expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 points and a playoff berth.
A Bold Prediction: Jonas Siegenthaler will not end the season on the Devils’ roster. I like Siegenthaler, he’s an easy player to root for. But I think his time in New Jersey is coming to an end. Siegenthaler had a marvelous 2021-22 season, establishing himself as a premier shutdown defenseman in the league. His 2022-23, despite the team’s overall success, was more of a mixed bag, as his defensive numbers faded as the year wore on. And then his numbers absolutely cratered a season ago. Whether it’s due to injury (which, unfortunately, he has dealt with a lot the past few seasons) or just plain underperformance, Siegenthaler doesn’t appear to be trusted as much anymore. Offseason acquisition Brenden Dillon has been lining up with Dougie Hamilton on the top pair in the preseason, signalling a reduction in Siegenthaler’s role. He’s got a manageable contract which might be enticing to other teams, and I think the Devils will trade him at the deadline to bolster another part of their roster.
X Factor: Brett Pesce. Dougie Hamilton is the most important Devils defenseman. Assuming he can stay healthy this season, he needs to lead the blueline and produce his usual big numbers. But Brett Pesce, once he’s ready to play again coming off his offseason surgery, will need to be the defensive conscience of the blueline while Hamilton leads the charge offensively. One of the major reasons 2022-23 went so well was because the second pairing of Ryan Graves and John Marino was able to absorb tough minutes against elite competition and more often than not come out the other side the victor of those matchups. Graves left in free agency, Marino fell off a cliff defensively, and the blueline never recovered, especially with Hamilton out most of the year. In comes Brett Pesce, who has a reputation as a sterling shutdown defenseman. If he can approximate what the second pair gave New Jersey in 2022-23, the Devils should be in much better shape.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 2nd in the Metropolitan Division and make the playoffs.
Ian MacLean
Season Thoughts: I expect the Devils to be a more competitive team in more facets of the game this season. Many teams respect the offensive potential of the Devils’ top two lines. On the other hand, winning puck battles and establishing a net-front presence have been areas the Devils have struggled in. A lot has been made of the Devils bringing in size and physicality in the offseason with the additions of Brett Pesce, Stefan Noesen, Paul Cotter, and Johnathan Kovacevic. By no means do I think that the 2024-2025 Devils will be the reincarnation of the 1970s Flyers, but I do think they will dig more pucks out of the corners and be tougher in front of the opposing team’s net. Frankly, they must improve in those areas to win more games. I think the offseason additions will help the likes of Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Jesper Bratt do their thing: SCORE!
A Bold Prediction: It’s called a bold prediction so here we go. Jesper Bratt breaks the 100-point mark. For the past few seasons, the debate has been whether Jack Hughes will break 100 points and he nearly did in the 2022-2023 season. Let me be clear, if Hughes is healthy for 82 games, I think it is a lock that he breaks the 100-point mark. However, Hughes had offseason surgery and he is not the largest human being in the NHL. I am a huge Jack Hughes fan, but there is a small part of me that is concerned about the grind of the season and injuries. Bratt, meanwhile, had a career year in 2023-2024, accumulating 83 points. He earned 73 points in the prior two seasons. Considering the talent of the Devils’ top six and the players added over the summer, I think Bratt could take another leap forward.
X Factor: The X factor is the depth of the defense. Luke Hughes is out to start the year. Brett Pesce is still recovering from the fractured fibula. Although he played in the preseason, is Simon Nemec fully healthy? Injuries hit every team throughout the entire season. The Devils need their defensive depth to step up in a big way to start the season on the right foot.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 2nd in the Metropolitan Division and make the playoffs.
Jared Moore
Season Thoughts: I wrote last year how the biggest thing for me going into last year was how the Devils team handled expectations. While injuries were a major factor, the Devils couldn’t have handled expectations any more poorly than they did.
Tom Fitzgerald has done just about everything one can do on paper to fix the issues that the team had last year. He fired the head coach, he traded for two goaltenders, he signed two prominent defensemen, and took strides to make the team tougher to play against. It’s on the players now to execute and live up to those expectations that haven’t dissipated or disappeared off of a down season. I think they’re capable of doing it, but they have to show it after last year went as poorly as it did.
A Bold Prediction: I don’t write this to be lazy but my bold prediction is the same as it was last year. Jack Hughes not only makes it through a season healthy….he finds another level as a player, becomes the first Devils player to score 120+ points in a season, establishes himself as the best American-born player in the NHL, and wins his first Hart Trophy in the process.
X Factor: How can it be anything other than injury luck? The Devils were ravaged by injuries to many key players last season and that combined with their goaltending woes and defensive issues proved to be too much to overcome. This season hasn’t been off to a great start with Luke Hughes missing the start of the season, Brett Pesce slow to recover from offseason surgery, and Santeri Hatakka getting hurt in camp. I do think the Devils have better depth to withstand injuries in some spots, but there’s also no replacing a Jack Hughes or Dougie Hamilton if they go down.
Injuries aren’t an excuse as to why the team is playing poorly, but they can be a reason. And while the record books say Jack Hughes ‘only’ missed 20 games and Timo Meier ‘only’ missed 13 games last year, anyone who watched the games saw they weren’t the same players once they got hurt. So I would ask the hockey gods for better luck in that regard.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 3rd in the Metropolitan Division behind the Rangers and Carolina and make the playoffs with 98 points.
Gerard Lionetti
Season Thoughts: The New Jersey Devils will aim to correct the wrongs of 2023-24 as the 2024-25 campaign starts. With a new coach, a new goalie, and some new support for the team’s core, expectations are once again high for this group. Having Jack Hughes and Timo Meier healthy should help alleviate the scoring pressure that Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier mostly carried last season, but the team will also need some bounce back seasons and some support from depth players as well. There are too many candidates to name for “bounce back seasons” so as long as the team has a number of players performing better than they did last year, the needle should move in the correct direction.
Starting the season with Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce on the shelf isn’t ideal, but it will give others, such as Seamus Casey, Simon Nemec, and a returning Dougie Hamilton reason to push themselves. Dawson Mercer needs to find his offensive touch again after misplacing it for much of last season and the newly christened line of “Meat and Mitts” (can we please take suggestions for a new name?) will need to bring both snarl and scoring. If all goes well, the Devils can be a deep, dangerous team that could make a serious push.
A Bold Prediction: A New Jersey Devil finally breaks the 100 point mark for the first time in the team’s history…but it will be Jesper Bratt, not Jack Hughes, that eclipses that total.
X Factor: Jacob Markstrom: the Devils will go as far as he does this season. Markstrom was specifically acquired to upgrade the team’s biggest weakness last season. If he can provide at the very least consistent, league-average goaltending, the Devils should easily return to prominence. If he struggles, either by his own merit, or by the team in front of him leaving him out to dry, then the season isn’t going to continue past the beginning of April.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 4th in the Metropolitan Division and make the playoffs.
John Fischer
Season Thoughts: I covered some of this in Part 0, but this season needs to be a success. Success is defined as making the playoffs at a minimum. Spare me the comments about whether someone or the Devils Have It All to Go All the Way. When a team misses the playoffs and has missed it in all but one season under current management, then the primary goal is making it. I suggest worrying about Playoff Hockey narratives once the Devils are actually in it.
And the Devils need to be in it just based on how the team is constructed. The prime of The Big Deal is now. Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec will be in it shortly. The best years of Dawson Mercer, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, and maybe Timo Meier are right now. The hope is that Dougie Hamilton and especially Jacob Markstrom can still provide solid seasons. I am not someone who believes you cannot trust anyone over 30, but I am someone who knows that time lost never returns. Tom Fitzgerald built this team to win today So they need to win today. The talent is there. The money has been spent. A new coach in Sheldon Keefe was brought in. Fitzgerald got his Markstrom, added to the blueline, and made a concerted effort in adding size and/or meat to the system. This is the team for now and nearly the entire core is set for at least another two seasons. Now it has to work. Missing the playoffs regardless of the circumstances should be enough for Fitzgerald to be replaced.
A Bold Prediction: Are you ready for Erik Haula’s second-ever 20+ goal season in his career? Because it is happening in 2024-25 somehow.
X Factor: The Jacob Markstrom – Jake Allen goaltending tandem. I wrote up the goaltending part of the preview and I believe they will provide an upgrade over Vanecek-Schmid of last season. How much of an upgrade it will be will make all of the difference in whether the Devils are competing for first place in the Metropolitan or scrapping for a wild card spot in March.
The 2024-25 Season Prediction: The Devils will finish 3rd in the Metropolitan Division and make the playoffs.
Thank you for reading this sixth and final part of our multi-part season preview of the 2024-25 Devils season. Please feel free to leave your own predictions about the upcoming season in the comments. Thanks to everyone who wrote up the earlier parts in this series as well as helped prepare us through preseason action. The season starts tomorrow! Thank you again for reading.