The Devils are only four games into the season, but the message around this team is already pretty clear: don’t rush to make sweeping judgments.
That’s the reality of an 84-game grind with a shortened preseason. Everyone is still figuring things out, teams are still sorting out their identity, and the hockey has been messy in spots. But the games count anyway, and a sluggish start can come back to bite a team in March and April.
For New Jersey, the 2-2 record itself isn’t the whole story. The bigger concern is how the offense looks and how the goals are coming. Through a handful of games, that has been the sharper lens for judging this group, and it explains why the Devils seem more focused on the process than the results this early in the year.
That kind of steady approach starts with the veterans, and Brenden Dillon is a big part of that. The oldest skater on the roster has played 1060 games and blocked 1396 shots, and the wear and tear shows. Still, he remains exactly the sort of depth defenseman a team needs when the schedule stretches into a true marathon.
Dillon has seen every version of a team over the years - young, rebuilding, competitive, and stuck in the middle - and now in his third season with the Devils, he’s part of a group that’s still adjusting to a new look. That experience brings a calm edge to the room as the season starts to lengthen.
He also serves as a useful guide for Declan Chisholm, another defenseman who has bounced around and played for at least four teams. Chisholm has spent a lot of time with Dillon as a pairing, and the veteran has made sure he understands what this chance means. The Devils added Chisholm this offseason with the hope that he could round out his game, and Dillon gives him the kind of partner who knows exactly what that process looks like.
The Devils’ veteran presence goes beyond Dillon, too. This is still a team with nine players who are 30 or older, and in a season this long, that matters. Those older voices are there to keep the group from getting too high or too low, especially when the early returns are still uneven.
New Jersey’s two wins haven’t exactly solved the bigger questions. The Devils beat the Flyers on opening night, but it took overtime, and Philadelphia was already coming in on the second night of a back-to-back. They followed that with a 4-1 win over Vancouver on Saturday, but the Canucks are in a rebuild and still short on talent.
That’s why the 2-2 record comes with a bit of caution attached. The combined record of the two teams the Devils have beaten is 2-8-2, and that makes it harder to treat those victories as firm evidence of where this team is headed. The power play popped against Vancouver, going 3-for-4 after opening the season 1-14, but even that comes with context: the Canucks had already allowed 11 power-play goals in five games.
So the bigger test is still ahead, and the coming week should say more than the first four games have. The Devils have a back-to-back against the Ottawa Senators and the Detroit Red Wings, which is a sturdier measuring stick than what they’ve seen so far.
There’s also plenty of encouraging news down in Utica. The Comets, the Devils’ AHL affiliate, have opened with back-to-back 2-1 wins and are in position to start 3-0. For a system trying to build something stable, that’s a strong sign.
One of the early standouts there has been Anton Silaev, who has caught attention on defense. One scout said, “He’s going to be a problem when he gets to the NHL,” and that’s notable because young defensemen usually need time. Silaev, at least early on, looks ahead of schedule and may be on the Devils sooner than expected.
Friday’s practice also brought a comment from Luke Evangelista about his junior days with the London Knights and coach Dale Hunter. Evangelista said, “He’s built a development factory out there,” and he pointed to how the organization pushes players to compete for everything they get. He named Bo Horvat, Denver Barkey, and Easton Cowan among the players developed there, and described Hunter’s program as one that forces players to work while leaving them grateful for the way it prepares them for the NHL.
The Devils’ schedule doesn’t give them much time to settle in. The next stretch is a difficult one, and the results there should tell a lot more about who this team is right now.
In Other News...
Devils Suddenly Have A Depth Question Up Front Again
The Devils have had to shuffle their forward group again, recalling Stefan Noesen from Utica while Connor Brown goes on injured reserve after the injury he sustained on Sept. 28. Brown has still been skating, which gives New Jersey some flexibility, but for now the roster move leaves the club working a little thinner up front than it would like early in the season.
Noesen has already appeared in two games for New Jersey this year, and his return gives the coaching staff another familiar option as they manage the lineup. For the moment, he slides back into the role of the 13th forward, a useful spot to have covered when the wear and tear starts to pile up and the depth chart needs a quick answer. [Read more 🡒]