Chronicling the misfortunes: The 2021-22 New Jersey Devils

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By CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil)

During the most recent edition of a decade-long running show that is New Jersey Hockey futility, many have renewed the early-season cries to remove the coaching staff.

As is the case when a coach is not fired on a disappointing team, those cries are burgeoning for GM Tom Fitzgerald as well.

When these types of conversations begin, it’s important to make sure that the narrative remains as detached as possible from the coin flips involved in the sport and remains as true to the actual performance of the people in their roles. 

In the case of New Jersey management, the first step is in establishing what things were clearly not their fault. In my opinion, there are three pretty glaring examples of components that were largely out of the control of management and staff.

1. Goaltending

It’s been discussed ad nauseum in the blogosphere and twittersphere so I won’t belabor the point much here beyond saying this: Tom Fitzgerald has probably been the most proactive GM in the NHL when it comes to addressing the goaltending position. 

He has made big signings in consecutive off-seasons for goaltenders that could not only act as 1Bs to Blackwood, but take over the starting job if necessary.

Crawford decided to retire before every putting on a Devils sweater and Bernier had a cup of coffee before determining that his nagging hip injury sidelined him for the rest of this season. 

As insurance policies, Fitzgerald also added three separate AHL-NHL tweeners during his short tenure in Louis Domingue (Zane Macasomething), Jon Gillies (future considerations) and Scott Wedgewood (UFA). 

And, lastly, it’s not as if he’s been short-sighted when it comes to the long-term importance of the position either. He has continued the practice of Ray Shero to draft a goalie every year. He took one of the most highly-touted prospects in his first draft (Nico Daws) and he spent another 4th rounder in 2021 on Jakub Malek to add to a pool which already boasted Akira Schmid and Gilles Senn.

The franchise has spent a lot of effort trying to address the goaltender position. With Mackenzie Blackwood as a former No. 2 overall goaltending prospect and 4-year NHL veteran at only 25 years old, you have to assume he’s locked in for at least one more season. That only gives us one shot per year to take, reasonably. And Crawford and Bernier were good bets. The only thing you can say he could’ve done is bet bigger on a younger goalie (I advocated for Ullmark), but projections this year had the Devils getting average goaltending so it should’ve been fine. Injuries to both starters have forced them to miss games and underachieve in games they did play. 

The Devils are 13-13-4 in the Blackwood/Bernier games and 2-12-1 in all others. Collectively they have cost the team ~30 goals vs expectation, which almost entirely makes up their -37 team goal differential. 

This has been the story of the Devils season, and it was almost entirely out of their control.