The New Jersey Devils are doing well in the 2024-25 season, looking strong in their bounce-back year.
They’ve won three games in a row and six of their last nine, putting them at the top of the Metropolitan Division, just one point ahead of the Washington Capitals, and second in the NHL. They will try to keep up their good form when they play the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday.
New Jersey, which had 112 points two seasons ago, is on track to get close to that number again this season with 45 points from 34 games.
After an 81-point finish last season, general manager Tom Fitzgerald hired coach Sheldon Keefe, brought in goalie Jacob Markstrom, and signed defensemen Brett Pesce (free agent) and Johnathan Kovacevic (trade).
This season, the Devils have improved their defense, allowing 2.56 goals per game compared to 3.43 last season.
“We had boxes to check in the summer. We did that,” Fitzgerald said Monday. “The ebbs and flows of a season and the ebbs and flows of production from certain players, it comes and goes.
We’d like to see more of it coming to take some pressure off some other guys. We’re just a one-day-at-a-time team. That’s it. We don’t get too far ahead of ourselves… Just one day at a time.”
The Devils recently beat the St. Louis Blues 4-1 on the road, building a 3-0 lead. This win followed a 4-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday, where they scored four goals in the third period.
“It looked the same way as we’ve been playing in the last home stretch here, which is good defensive hockey, good penalty kill, good power play coming up clutch for us again,” Markstrom said after the St. Louis game. “We don’t get many chances but for us to put up three and one empty-netter, is big for us. We capitalized on our chances.”
The Blue Jackets, however, are struggling and will be trying to turn things around after losing five straight and eight of their last nine games (1-6-2). The latest loss was 5-3 against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday, where they fought back from a 4-0 deficit but couldn’t complete the comeback.
In a 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, Columbus fell behind 2-0 in the first period.
“Down 4-0 is kind of embarrassing, especially with what happened in Carolina,” forward Adam Fantilli said. “We wanted to come in and have a great game. Obviously, that wasn’t it from the start. We tried to win with what we had left in the third. It wasn’t enough.”
Slow starts have been a big problem for the Blue Jackets in their current 0-3-2 slide. They’ve allowed the first goal in four of those games, and in three of them, they fell behind by multiple goals. They’ve trailed first 15 times in 32 games, winning just three of those games.
“We have a choice like … just give or step up, so we stepped up, but that’s not enough,” forward Mikael Pyyhtia said. “We have to play (the) full 60 minutes if we want to win the hockey games.”
