2024 is almost over. While the first half of the calendar year wasn’t kind to the Garden State NHL squad, the second half has been a bundle of fun. Of course, the first half of 2024 was the conclusion of the 2023-24 season in which the New Jersey Devils went from high expectations to firing their Head Coach and making wholesale changes in net and on defense. Meanwhile, the second half has seen the Devils embark on the type of season they were supposed to have in 2023-24. But hey, better late than never, right? As the calendar prepares to turn to 2025, New Jersey is firmly sitting in playoff position and on most nights looks like it should be one of the favorites to win it all in June. 

Saturday night, the Devils hosted the Carolina Hurricanes at Prudential Center for their final home game of the 2024 calendar year. The result was a 4-2 Devils victory. The game featured the end of New Jersey’s seven-game streak of allowing 20 shots on goal or less and also saw the team get offensive contributions from up and down the lineup. Ondrej Palat, Nico Hischier, Luke Hughes and Dawson Mercer provided the goalscoring while Jacob Markstrom watched his shutout streak end; but he still picked up the win thanks to a 29-save effort.

“I think it’s great,” Mercer explained. “Obviously, you want as much scoring as you can from everyone. The more the better. We all know what we can do in here in the room and hopefully (we) keep on moving forward in that direction.”

With 2024 transitioning into 2025, the Devils’ high command needs to start thinking not just about January, February and March, but also about April, May and June. To truly be considered a “favorite” the Devils need a little more offense. And that’s something GM Tom Fitzgerald pointed out during his State of The Union address a couple weeks ago. 

Sure, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier and Nico Hischier are having excellent years. And yes, Stefan Noesen has already eclipsed his previous career-high in goals, but outside of those five, New Jersey’s offense has had its issues. 

“We’re a team,” Hischier explained. “We win together, we lose together. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who scores. For us it’s obviously good to see (scoring from up and down the lineup), but, like I said, we are a whole team and we are not trying to look too much at who’s scoring and who’s not.”

Jack Hughes, Bratt and Noesen each had an assist in the game against Carolina. Hischier scored New Jersey’s second goal of the game 16:54 into the first period when he and Noesen went up the ice on a two-on-one odd-man rush before The Captain sniped a roof job past Pyotr Kochetkov to give the Devils a 2-1 lead. 

Paul Cotter’s goal-scoring has dried up after a hot start. Ondrej Palat plays with Hughes and Bratt but is more the workman than the scoreman on that line (how ironic then that he actually scored the Devils’ first goal of the game by being the last person to get a piece of a loose puck 16:12 into the first period). 

Dawson Mercer has bounced around the lineup as Head Coach Sheldon Keefe tries to get him going. That clearly worked against Carolina as Mercer found himself perfectly positioned at the side of the net 8:47 into the second period and banged home the rebound past Kochetkov to increase the Devils’ lead to 4-2. 

Erik Haula and Tomas Tatar have combined for just 20 points with nearly have the season in the books. And Justin Dowling is likely to soon be replaced in the lineup by a returning Curtis Lazar. 

Meanwhile, the Devils’ defense corps has chipped in with 15 goals (16 after Luke Hughes scored New Jersey’s third goal of the night, 4:15 into the second period). That puts them Top 10 in The League in both goals and points by defensemen, which is crucial when trying to establish secondary scoring. 

“We have a really good D-corps,” said Luke Hughes. “Defense comes first. We’ve got really good, six guys, who can defend and who are really good in transition. (We) give it to our skilled forwards and they set us up pretty good. Like I said, we can win in different ways and tonight was one of those nights.”

“It’s so important,” Keefe added on. “You talk often about depth scoring and those kinds of things, the defense is part of that. You need them involved. If you’re gonna generate consistent offense at five-on-five in today’s NHL, your defense has to be engaged and have to be a part of it. And we’ve had great contributions.”