Farewell 2023-24, the New Jersey Devils hardly knew thee.

Tuesday night at Prudential Center the Devils entered their game with the Maple Leafs on what can only be described as double-secret probation. A regulation loss, coupled with either the Islanders or Flyers gaining at least one point, or the Red Wings earning a win, would officially eliminate the Devils from the playoff race. Meanwhile, a win would mean they’d survive at least one more day in the cluster known as the Eastern Conference playoff race. When the game with Toronto was over, so too was their season as their 5-2 loss, coupled with the Islanders’ 4-2 victory over the Rangers, meant the Devils were mathematically eliminated from the playoff race.

Here’s how it all went down…

For starters, roughly an hour and a half before game time, the Devils announced that Jack Hughes’ season was officially over. Hughes, who has been banged up all year, is undergoing shoulder surgery on Wednesday, April 10th and the team expects him to make a full recovery in time for next season’s Training Camp.

In Hughes’ absence, Jesper Bratt has been elevated to Alternate Captain and is in line to hold onto that designation for the rest of the season. 

As for the game, the first half of the opening period was a defensive slog as neither team appeared to have its footing. It took the Maple Leafs almost six minutes to record a shot on goal while the Devils coughed up the puck like it was going out of style. To be fair, New Jersey did have their sticks in the right places consistently, as they broke up numerous Toronto pass attempts. That being said, Nicholas Robertson’s shot through traffic, at the 8:56 mark, beat Jake Allen and the Maple Leafs had themselves a 1-0 lead. 

The pace of the game picked up a tad in the second half of the first period, although the shots on goal totals didn’t reflect that. Finally, with 14:25 gone by in the period, Nico Hischier was sprung for a partial breakaway courtesy of a Dawson Mercer stretch pass. New Jersey’s Captain was harassed by a defender as he approached the net and performed a little dipsy-doodle dandy to put the puck past goalie Joseph Woll and tie the game 1-1. 

The second period began with the Devils still killing off a Timo Meier tripping penalty that occurred in the final minute of the first period. The Garden Staters were under siege early, but they successfully killed off the penalty. Then, on a power play of their own – courtesy of a slashing penalty committed by Matthews Knies – Dawson Mercer used his nifty backhander to clean up the loose puck in front of Woll and give the Devils a 2-1 lead 5:17 into the middle period. 

Unfortunately, with five minutes remaining in the second period the Devils’ season-long issues of letting their mistakes snowball reared its ugly head again. In a span of nine seconds Tyler Bertuzzi and Mark Giordano each scored a goal to turn the Devils’ 2-1 lead into a 3-2 Toronto advantage. Bertuzzi was left all alone on the right side of the ice on his goal, while Giordano teed up a blast from just inside the blue line on the Leafs’ go-ahead marker.

After the game, Dawson Mercer attempted to explain why New Jersey’s mistakes tend to snowball. “It just happens within the game sometimes. There are bounces, plays, and mental errors. There are times you just wanna make sure you eliminate that as much as you can and obviously, you wanna just reflect on that. You can’t change what happened in the past; just make sure you keep on moving forward.”

New Jersey didn’t appear to move forward in the third period, nor did they put up much of a fight, and 7:33 into the final period, Auston Matthews delivered the dagger goal – his 66th of the year – to give the Maple Leafs a 4-2 lead. From a historical perspective, no player has scored 66 goals in a season since before Auston Matthews was born. Matthews was born in September 1997. The last 66+ goal season was Mario Lemieux’s 69-goal performance in 1995-96. 

Bertuzzi wrapped things up with an empty-netter at 18:47 of the third period to hand the Devils their 5-2 loss. Roughly 20 minutes later, the Devils were officially eliminated from the playoff race when the Islanders finished off their 4-2 win over the Rangers.

With just three, now meaningless, games left in their season, the Devils are left quoting the old Brooklyn Dodgers – “wait till next year.”