Three reasons to be optimistic about the New Jersey Devils in 2024-25

There are plenty of reasons we should expect much more from the Devils next season. Let's dive into three of them.

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Expectations were very high for the New Jersey Devils last season. Given as much, an 81-point campaign was about the worst possible outcome.

There are plenty of reasons to believe a reloaded Devils team can rebound and make noise in 2024-25.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of them.

Improved goaltending

To say the Devils had issues between the pipes would be the understatement of the century.

Be it Vitek Vanecek, Nico Daws, or Akira Schmid, none of the team’s goaltenders could make stops with any sort of consistency.

Getting a quality start – no matter the opponent – felt like a miracle, which is never a good thing.

Tom Fitzgerald started to make necessary changes at the deadline, most notably with the acquisition of Jake Allen. Prior to that point, it was almost unfathomable how poor the goaltending was.

The Devils ranked dead last in high-danger save percentage from October until deadline day. They didn’t fare much better in total save percentage, besting only the Ottawa Senators in that category – and by the slightest of margins.

Yet the Devils posted a 31-28-4 record in that span and were still in the conversation for a Wild Card spot.

Despite arguably the league’s worst goaltending through ~75% of the season (and a handful of other problems), the Devils were able to hang around.

That makes it very exciting to think about what they can do with an average goaltending tandem, let alone the high-end one Jacob Markstrom and Allen appear to be.

Of the 36 goaltenders to play 2,000+ minutes in 2023-24, none posted a better HDSV% than Markstrom. He’ll help immensely in an area the Devils were worse than anybody.

Allen also showed what he could do down the stretch, keeping a watered-down squad in a lot of games they didn’t belong in.

Even at their worst, Markstrom and Allen will be able to provide drastically better netminding than the Devils had a year ago. That’s going to help them win plenty more games.

Better team health