Prediction: The New Jersey Devils will make the playoffs in 2022-23

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By CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil)

I think that between the demoralizing collapse against the Florida Panthers, the home loss to our rivals, and the injuries to key players – most notably Jack Hughes – many are finding it hard to isolate bright spots in the season. 

I did my best to tell people not to care about the win-loss record, especially when the goalie is the difference, but when you’re in the eye of the storm, it’s difficult to see the sun. So let me cut straight to the shock and get everyone’s attention back:

The New Jersey Devils will make the playoffs in 2022-23.

In the midst of the worst season since 1986 by standings points percentage, this is probably a bizarre claim to many, but it’s totally reasonable to think it’s true and the explanation is probably going to be familiar to returning readers. 

The Devils this season are the story of two teams: our skater roster and our goalie roster. The skater roster is performing, more or less, as expected. We got big jumps from Hughes and Jesper Bratt, continued improvement from Yegor Sharangovich, an encouraging return from Nico Hischier, and one of the most impressive rookie seasons in the NHL from Dawson Mercer. Dougie is going to be fine, and the disappointment of Ty Smith is canceled out by the unexpected emergence of Jonas Siegenthaler.

According to Evolving-Hockey, the Devils have the 12th most valuable roster of skaters already, and with the youngest roster in the NHL, the 4th best prospect pool, and a high pick in the next draft, it is only up from here.

The second story is the goaltending. To this point, the Devils’ goalies have been not only the worst in the NHL, not only the worst in franchise history, but the 5th worst in the entire analytics era. The Devils have iced seven different goalies this year, and every. single. one. has a negative GSAX, meaning they’ve cost us goals relative to a league-average netminder. Collectively, the group has been an astonishing 27 goals below replacement level. 

That fact may sound depressing, but it should actually make you more optimistic about next year. No team has ever sustained goaltending that far below replacement level longer than a year. Here are the bottom 10 teams in the analytics era in terms of goalie value rate, and what those teams did the next season.

Did teams like the Devils get “good” goaltending? Generally, no. Did all of the teams improve dramatically? Absolutely. In fact, they were, on average, above replacement-level.

Let’s say the Devils get the historical average level of improvement for these types of teams and they improve by 0.48 goals per hour, bringing them to a goalie GAR of 0.09. If you add that to their Skater GAR, you end up with the following position in the league.

Note how modest these assumptions are. I’m not assuming the Devils skaters improve, despite the fact that aging curves indicate they’re the most likely team in the NHL to do so. I’m not assuming they graduate any additional superstar prospects, which most analysts believe they will. I’m not saying the will get league-average goaltending, which is absolutely possible.

I am saying that they will experience what all teams with historically poor performance in some area experience in the subsequent year – regression to the mean. And with that extremely mild assumption, the Devils improve to the 7th best team in the league, nestled right between Boston and Tampa in the East.

I know I sound like a broken record player when I scream #JustTheGoalie into the void of Twitter once a week, but the relentlessness of the pessimism necessitates a similarly relentless optimism in response.

The Devils have had an extremely encouraging season from their skaters, and an entirely unsustainable performance from their goalies. The latter will improve from sheer force of regression and the former will probably improve as well given the ages of our assets. And for many other teams in the East, the precise opposite seems likely to happen. 

The Capitals, Islanders, and Lightning are the three oldest teams in the NHL, the Hurricanes have the best team goaltending in the NHL, and the Rangers have the best individual goaltender. The same forces that will buoy the Devils’ standings position are destined to sink their competitors.

It is for this reason that I am optimistic. The team results are not there, but in looking at our roster and how they project to play moving forward, there are not many teams that have a brighter outlook beyond the crease. 

It is for this reason that I’m making the claim now on April 8th 2022, that the Devils will make the playoffs in the 2022-23 season. 

Okay boys, don’t let me down. My mentions one year from now are at stake!