The New Jersey Devils have better goaltending this season, but their defense hasn't been up to par in the NHL playoffs, writes Adam Proteau.
As they showed in their first-round playoff series win over the New York Rangers, the New Jersey Devils showed signs of life in Game 3 against the Carolina Hurricanes. They won 8-4 to cut Carolina’s series lead to 2-1. However, the Hurricanes answered back in Game 4 Tuesday, spanking the Devils 6-1 margin to take a 3-1 series stranglehold.
New Jersey has been beaten by a combined 17-3 score in the Hurricanes’ three second-round victories – and that’s as good a metric as any to demonstrate that the Devils have been greatly outclassed by the Canes on the defensive end.
Now, this isn’t to say that New Jersey doesn’t have valuable defensemen on their team. Clearly, they employ above-average D-men in star Dougie Hamilton and up-and-coming prospect Luke Hughes. They also have a solid blueliner in John Marino, who was acquired from Pittsburgh last summer. That’s three long-term pieces, but who is the Devils’ equivalent of Carolina’s rugged Brent Burns? That’s one of the issues here.
The Devils’ overall defense improved this season because they got better goaltending from Vitek Vanecek and, more recently, from rookie Akira Schmid. But it’s not about New Jersey having improved play in their own zone – it’s about how good they are in comparison to Metropolitan Division rivals they must play in the post-season. And the Hurricanes, quite simply, have a better top-four group of defensemen than the Devils do.
How do they address that? Well, New Jersey does have more than $34.2 million in salary cap space this summer, per CapFriendly. They do have to use much of that amount to fill out their roster – they currently have just 12 players signed for the 2023-24 campaign – but rather than spend for another big fish up front, wouldn’t it make more sense for the Devils to allocate a significant amount of cap space to bulk up their defense corps?
Who could they target? Well, Minnesota Wild veteran Matt Dumba is scheduled to be a UFA in a few weeks. The 28-year-old had a subpar season on offense for the Wid, but those struggles have dropped his asking price as a UFA. He had a cap hit of $6 million per season with Minnesota, and that’s a number the Devils could afford to take on. Dumba would be a solid fit in New Jersey’s top two defense pairings and really improve their physical game. Dumba would be an improvement on current top-four Devils D-man Damon Severson, who is the same age and who will be a UFA this summer.
Another option for the Devils would be veteran Dmitry Orlov. The left-shot blueliner is probably a better fit than the right-shot Dumba. Orlov is older – he’s 31 – but he showed after being traded from Washington to Boston that he can contribute at both ends of the ice.
Orlov could get a pay bump from the $5.1 million cap hit he carried this season, but he’s a proven commodity who can give a team more than 20 minutes of all-around game. He’d look fine in a Devils uniform.
Some people might prefer Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald to use his cap space to re-sign trade deadline marquee acquisition Timo Meier, but we believe the Devils’ offense is still potent without him. It’s their defense that needs a direct boost.
The Hurricanes are demonstrating why an elite defense corps is so important in the playoffs. New Jersey is behind in their series against Carolina in large part because the Canes’ D-men are outperforming the Devils’ D-men.
Building a Stanley Cup champion is a process, and New Jersey made headway in that regard this year by improving their goaltending. It’s now on Fitzgerald to ratchet up their blueliner group this off-season whether they rebound in this series or not.