Losers no more, devils overshadow rival Rangers and everyone else

Brendan Smith was so happy the night the Devils came back from two goals down to beat the Rangers at Madison Square Garden last month that he felt like he was floating across the ice in the dying seconds.

Smith, a former Ranger defenseman, has emerged as a central figure in the Devils’ stunning journey from obscurity to one of the NHL’s best and most exciting teams, and the victory marked more than a comeback against a rival. . It was a statement made early in the season that the nitro-charged Devils, who finished a whopping 47 points behind the Rangers last season, may have the brighter future.

That will be tested again Monday in a rematch at Madison Square Garden as New Jersey’s schedule intensifies.

Going into play, the Devils are second in the NHL with a 21-5-1 record behind waves of young, exciting skaters, most notably 2019 No. 1 overall draft pick Jack Hughes, a rising superstar center who dances and blinds with the puck on his stick to the delight of the astonished onlookers.

The Devils have already racked up six wins from the 27 they all had last season, which was another long streak of uneventful, losing campaigns. The recent Devils weren’t just bad, they seemed hopeless. Since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2012, New Jersey has made the playoffs just once, finishing last or penultimate in its division in eight of the past nine years.

For opponents, those Devil teams were an easy win, quickly bagging 2 points before advancing to the next game.

“You’d check them off as must-wins if you were playing against the Devils,” Smith recalled after a recent drill. “We would be angry if we didn’t start with 2 points. That was one area we had to change. Change the culture and change the mindset.”

Change doesn’t seem enough – enough word to explain the Devils’ sudden metamorphosis from slug to floating butterfly. They can play as fast or faster than anyone else in the league – very different from the highly successful, but often floundering, defensive Devils of old.

Now they expect to win and that was a culture shock for some old Devils players. Damon Severson, a defenseman who was drafted by New Jersey in 2012, said the Devils “wiped out” players (whom he didn’t name) who were content to go out after a 5-1 loss and devour cheeseburgers and fries, as if nothing had happened. has happened.

“It’s a shot to your ego,” Severson said of the bad years. “You’re a loser, you’re no good. But the worst part was we had some guys who didn’t really care over the years. It would be like, ‘I know I won’t be here for long, so I’m just going to get my salary and hope we play well and then go home at night and everything’s taken care of.’

“It was a very bad culture and mindset that way. It’s nice to see we’ve turned that page and brought in some better guys and fixed the issues.”

Tom Fitzgerald, the Devils’ general manager, said he was not aware of any specific instances of player indifference. Nevertheless, he added some highly regarded veterans to help create a more engaged and connected team atmosphere, including some who are very comfortable with winning.

Smith is one of them, along with Ondrej Palat, who is now injured but won two Stanley Cups with the Lightning. John Marino, a defenseman he acquired in the off-season, has also made the playoffs in each of his three previous seasons in Pittsburgh, and Erik Haula has played in the Stanley Cup Finals with the Vegas Golden Knights.

“I appreciate the pedigree of the championship,” said Fitzgerald. “We want good people, people who care, people who take pride in their work and are willing to judge themselves and want to get better.”

And for a team that cycled through seven goalies last year, trading draft picks to Washington for Vitek Vanecek, who ranks fourth in the league in goals against an average of 2.30, has helped change the Devils’ fortunes for now.

Fitzgerald knew his team would improve this season. Last year, with the pipeline of injured goaltenders, the Devils conceded 302 goals, fourth most in the league. This year, they have given up one of the fewest high hazard scoring opportunities and have one of the highest percentages of puck possession in the offensive zone.

This may have just been the season when many of their high-draft picks started to pay off. Since 2017, New Jersey has selected the top pick twice and also drafted seventh, fourth and second.

“Being at the bottom of the barrel for years gives you a lot of choices,” said Hughes. “We hoped to get there, but we didn’t know when. I can’t even say we’re there yet. But we play very well as a team.”

Nico Hischier, the number 1 choice in 2017, was named captain in 2021 when he was just 22. But this year, Fitzgerald said, Hischier has grown even more into the role.

“We are still young,” said Hischier, a great two-way center. “But we are no longer young people. We have experience.”

The frustrated fanbase continued to expect progress this year and showed withering impatience when the season got off to a bad start. The Devils lost their season opener in Philadelphia, and after the game Miles Wood, a left wing who has been with New Jersey since 2016, moaned that he was tired of being on a bad team.

Two nights later, as the Devils lost their home opener, Lindy Ruff, the head coach, caught the relentless end of the spectators’ fury as they chanted “Fire Lindy.” It was the low point.

But just under a month later, during a franchise-record 13 wins, fans chanted “Sorry Lindy,” a remarkable mass mea culpa from an impassioned fan base acknowledging their desperation. When that streak ended in the next game, against the Maple Leafs, fans now so used to winning, pelted the ice with full cans of beer after three disallowed Devils goals.

“They’ve had enough of losing,” Ruff said after a workout last week. “My job is to put on the hard skin and keep moving forward. We haven’t changed anything. We said: keep doing the right things and we will win hockey games.”

They have done this at a remarkable pace, becoming only the sixth team in league history to win 21 of the first 26 games, and the first to win 13 games in November. Hughes was exciting, never more so than when he carried the puck into a box with four Chicago defenders on Tuesday, blasted it and made a perfect pass to Dougie Hamilton, who scored on a one-time timer.

There are many more such highlights and Hughes, who is only 21, leads the Devils with 14 goals and 33 points. He is on track to break Patrik Elias’ club record of 96 points and carries all the hallmarks of a future superstar.

“He’s already close,” Ruff said. “Every year I have seen growth. He surprised me when he scored 26 last year, and he continues to surprise me. He has a skating skill and lateral movement on the ice that very few have.”

The only thing better than one Hughes on the roster is two. The Devils drafted Hughes’ younger brother, Luke Hughes, last year with the No. 4 overall pick. Luke Hughes, a standout sophomore defenseman at the University of Michigan, could join the club in April and perhaps move into his brother’s apartment.

Palat, who underwent groin surgery, may also be back in the new year, in time for what should be the Devils’ first playoff appearance since 2018. That would be especially satisfying for the longest-serving Devils players, like Wood. The past four seasons have been painful, especially as the Islanders and Rangers went to the conference finals in consecutive years.

Now it may be the Devils’ turn.

“If you had told me we were going to win 13 times in a row, it would have been a chore,” said Wood. “But I know this team has the talent to be where we are today.”