The 2023-24 New Jersey Devils season was nothing short of a disaster. Their inability to rise up to some immensely high expectations found them with a measly 38-39-5 record, losing 14 more games than their successful bout a year prior.
In an April 18 end-of-season press conference, interim head coach Travis Green and general manager Tom Fitzgerald offered some insight toward what exactly failed the team. While some of the information was fairly obvious – like youth and injuries, there was some sentiment revealed that may have played more of an issue than initially thought.
Conditioning and Effort
Green continued to mention the fact that while the team is uber-talented, conditioning could certainly be better. According to NHL Edge, the Devils spent just 39.8% of their even-strength ice time in the offensive zone, which is in the bottom half of the league.
With a team that is supposed to thrive off the rush and force pressure with their speed, that is extremely underwhelming. Green said, “If you are (poorly conditioned) it’s not good enough for me. I want players that are extremely well-conditioned. The game is played so fast right now – and it’s physical – when you get into the playoffs, you’ve got to be a well-conditioned athlete. There’s no excuse not to be.”
In terms of what he wants to see over the offseason, he also added, “Effort isn’t something that’s hard to get. And it doesn’t just start at training camp for me. Effort starts in two weeks when you take a little break and you get back to work and you’re ultra-competitive and ultra-committed to being the best version that you can be to come back and help the team win.”
When The Hockey Writers asked Fitzgerald whether his training staff or programs needed to be evaluated, he said, “I think we’re at the top when it comes to sports science and understanding where our guys are at. It’s just (about) pushing them and players accepting it. They get enough days off, that’s for sure. But when we go to work? We work. I ask you for an hour a day. That’s it. So you should be able to handle a really crisp skate…to me it’s mindset. That’s where I’d like to get to.”
Obviously, no particular names were dropped but with so much talk about effort, there appears to be a clear dilemma with some players. It’s very possible that they may have just coasted, assuming that their talent alone would help them prevail. But the eventual standings proved that to be incorrect.
Related: 2023-24 New Jersey Devils: What Went Wrong?
Then Fitzgerald made a comment that was even more eye-opening than the others, “I probably let my guard down on a lot of areas that may not matter upfront. It might be just dress code with people. You loosen it up a little bit – you know the old saying, right? You give an inch, they take a yard…be a little tighter…when you kind of loosen some things, some people take advantage of it versus being a nice guy. Things are going to change that way.”
Based on these comments alone, it will be very interesting to see the sort of shake-up that occurs over the offseason. Fitzgerald made it very clear that this season was immensely disappointing and not good enough for him. Now, it’s up to the players to buy in and improve their work ethic.
Banking Overtime Points
The Devils’ 38 victories were just one less than the New York Islanders (39), who locked up the third playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. The difference? The Isles had 11 more overtime (OT) points.
The Devils had the third-least of those “loser points” in the Eastern Conference, often unable to extend games to OT when it mattered. A perfect example was their contest on Jan. 17 against the Montreal Canadiens. They were knotted at two with about four and a half minutes to play. The Devils failed to chip the puck out of the zone and reversed it back into traffic. Then, turning the puck over and leading to a shot on goal, they were also unable to box out a 5-foot-8 Cole Caufield who put home the rebound. Instead of making a smarter play and holding on for those extra few minutes, the Devils walked away with zero points.
Green said, “I think we showed immaturity at times in situational awareness, and it cost us points that you get just by getting to overtime. You see a lot of veteran teams pick up a lot of overtime points.”
Fitzgerald then said, “It’s time that this young team matures into understanding what the teams that win actually do to get to hoist the Cup…there was a time I did speak to the team. I just said we cannot outscore our mistakes. No team can.”
It certainly didn’t help that Dougie Hamilton, arguably the best in the league at getting pucks through, was out of the lineup. As a result, the Devils only had one tying goal with the extra attacker on all season.
The added kicker is that the Devils are one of the best overtime teams in the entire league. If they were able to get the singular point more often, they would likely grab the second as well. They had games against the San Jose Shars, Anaheim Ducks (x2), Ottawa Senators, Arizona Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames that they weren’t able to grab a single point against – all teams below them in the standings.
Big Offseason Ahead
None of this is to say that youth and injuries aren’t valid reasons that the Devils had a whopping 31 fewer points than last season. The term I like to use is a “perfect storm”, where nearly everything that could have gone wrong…did.
But conditioning and effort should not be an issue regardless. And Fitzgerald mentioned the team’s ability to shy away from fundamentals that were taught as a child. That can’t happen either. While there are likely to be improvements made to the roster this offseason, there needs to be a serious internal evaluation on what is acceptable and what is not.
