The New Jersey Devils' season ended this week. In their final game, Nico Hischier reached 1,008 faceoff wins.
Hischier stands alone as the only player in the league to achieve over 1,000 faceoff wins this season—no other player even reached 900.
For comparison, the closest player is Carolina Hurricanes’ Jordan Staal, who had 839 faceoff wins.
To reach this milestone, Hischier entered the team's final game against the Boston Bruins needing two more wins. He delivered with 10 wins in that game, bringing his total to 1,008.
However, despite Hischier's individual accomplishment, the team still wasn't in a playoff spot.
After the game, attention turned to Hischier's thoughts on the season and how he felt the team performed.
“All around just disappointed," Hischier said to NJD.tv. "We didn’t play the way we wanted to play this year. I think it was like December, January, where we were struggling a lot, and we just couldn’t get it back. Just couldn’t find our game, and then it’s hard to come from behind. We see how tight it was this year in the East, we’ve got to find ways to be more consistent."
In the end, the team concluded the season with 87 points, placing seventh in the Metropolitan Division. Their final record was 42-37-3.
Individually, Hischier finished the season with 66 points in 82 games, recording 28 goals and 38 assists. Notably, he led the team in goals with 28 and ranked atop the roster with 6 game-winning goals.
Reflecting on the season during Wednesday's locker room cleanout, Hischier echoed his earlier message, consistently expressing disappointment.
“Very disappointing. Not the year that we hoped, or we wanted,” Hischier said. “Unfortunately, it is what it is right now. We have to take the right things out of it and move on.”
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