As we as writers, and you as readers have said though, it would be nice to see the goalies bail out the skaters when necessary and said bail outs are few and far between. Technically, the two problems are not mutually exclusive either, as a lot of the gaffes are leading directly to goals against. The problem of the Devils this season is twofold: the goaltending and bad mistakes by the other skaters. While it’s not a death sentence for the season (there are a number of teams in front of the Devils by only a few points that they have multiple games in hand on) it’s not inspiring confidence to see them this far down at this juncture. Mired in mediocrity at sixth in the divisional standings and 10th in the conference, the Devils find themselves sitting outside of any playoff spot as the calendar year winds down. If we were to go back to just a mere three months ago, prior to the start of the 2023-24 season, almost no New Jersey Devils fans would have predicted them to be where they are right now.
