Three reasons to be pessimistic about the New Jersey Devils in 2022-23

While the Devils made plenty of improvements, several question marks remain.

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New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald has been a busy man this off-season.

He added a top-6 forward (Ondrej Palat), a top-4 defenseman (John Marino), a solid platoon goaltender (Vitek Vanecek), and some useful depth pieces (Erik Haula and Brendan Smith).

Combine those additions with the strong, but ever-improving, core already in place and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about what the team can accomplish this season.

Even so, I want to take a glass half-empty approach and shine light on a few question marks that could prevent the Devils from being a playoff team for the 10th time in 11 years.

Goaltending, goaltending, goaltending

This godforsaken position has completely erased any chance of competency two years in a row.

Given the variance we tend to see in performance from year-to-year, I’m convinced I’d have it as a question mark no matter what GM Tom Fitzgerald did to address it.

I think the goaltending will be better; much better. It’s almost impossible for it not to be.

That doesn’t mean it’ll be good.

While Vitek Vanecek’s 5v5 numbers last year were very strong, his overall numbers weren’t that great. His save percentage was a little above average but he didn’t hold his head above water in terms of Goals Saved Above Expected.

Evolving-Hockey had him worth -2.76 GSAx, with Linus Ullmark and Kaapo Kahkonen his closest comparables.

Vanecek’s performance seems better when you add in the context of games played. He allowed a little more than 0.06 goals above expected per game, meaning he cost the Capitals one goal for every ~15-16 games. The Devils would’ve killed for that.

If, for any reason, he takes a step back with new surroundings – or suffers any sort of mid-term injury – it’ll be tough to rest easy relying on Mackenzie Blackwood.

Yes, Blackwood has plenty of raw talent. Yes, Blackwood has performed pretty well each year before suffering an injury or two (or catching COVID-19).

But he has also struggled mightily – for one reason or another – for the better of two seasons. And the ‘he’s good when fully healthy’ doesn’t mean as much when, you know, he has a hard time staying healthy.