Yesterday the numbers told us Montreal's 106-point breakout was mostly a mirage. The New Jersey Devils are the same lesson stood on its head: a team the standings badly misjudged, except this time the misjudgment ran the other way. New Jersey finished with 87 points and the vague scent of a disappointment. The underlying numbers say they were one of the most robbed teams in the league, and that is the best thing that could have happened to their 2026-27.
Average team, brutal luck
Here is the shape of it.
| Measure | New Jersey | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Standings finish | 87 pts | A vague disappointment |
| 5-on-5 expected-goals share | 50% | Dead average - not a bad team |
| 5-on-5 goals vs expected | -34 | Season-long cold streak - the puck would not go in |
| Jack Hughes availability | 61 of 82 games | The engine missed a quarter of the year |
New Jersey was not a bad team last year. At five-on-five they ran a 50 percent expected-goals share, dead average, the profile of a club that plays even-up with most of the league. Average possession usually buys you a comfortable spot in the playoff race, somewhere north of 90 points.
Then look at the finishing. The Devils scored 34 fewer five-on-five goals than their chances said they should have. Thirty-four. That is not a slump; that is a season-long, team-wide cold streak, the kind of number that simply does not repeat. They generated the looks. The puck refused to cooperate.
Unlike Montreal, whose luck inflated a mediocre underlying team into a fake contender, New Jersey's luck deflated a genuinely fine team into a fake letdown. Same gap between the standings and the ice, opposite direction, and bad finishing is a far safer thing to bet on than good finishing is to trust. A team that creates chances and does not bury them is a team one normal shooting season away from a leap.
The engine missed a quarter of the season
The other half of the story is availability, and it has a name. Jack Hughes, the straw that stirs everything in New Jersey, played 61 of 82 games and still racked up 77 points. That is a point-per-game-plus pace from a franchise centre who sat out a quarter of the year. You do not replace that. When Hughes is out, the entire attack downshifts, and the Devils spent 21 games running their offense without their best player in it.
Around him the talent is obvious and the bounce-backs are stacked. Jesper Bratt poured in 71 points. Nico Hischier, whom the Devils just locked up long-term at north of $11 million a season, quietly went 28-38-66 as a genuine two-way No. 1. And Timo Meier, a 35-goal shooter at his best, limped to 24 on exactly the kind of finishing dip that screams positive regression. That is four top-six forwards who were hurt, cold, or both, and every one of those arrows points up.
Why this is a real sleeper, not wishful thinking
The trap with "bad luck" arguments is that they can excuse anything, so here is the discipline: you only bet on the bounce when the underlying play is actually there. New Jersey's is. This was not a team getting caved in at five-on-five and blaming the hockey gods. It was an even-strength-neutral club with a loaded top six that did not finish and did not have its best player. Those are the fixable problems, the kind that mostly fix themselves just by running it back healthy.
Regress the finishing toward league norms, hand them a full season of Jack Hughes, and let Meier shoot his career average, and the same roster that scraped 87 points is a 95-to-100-point team without adding a soul. The Hischier extension is the front office saying the core stays. The pieces are in place.
The one thing that could cap it
Honesty demands the caveat, and it lives in the crease. New Jersey traded Jacob Markström to Florida this summer, and the Devils were already a hair below expected in net at five-on-five last year. A bounce-back built on the skaters only fully lands if the goaltending holds up, and right now that is the open question on the roster, the one variable that could keep a 95-point team stuck at 88. If the crease is even league-average, the skater regression does the rest. If it is not, it becomes the new thing dragging a good team down.
The bottom line
New Jersey's 87 points were every bit as misleading as Montreal's 106, the standings lied about both, just in opposite directions. The difference is which lie you would rather own walking into next season. Montreal has to hope the magic holds. New Jersey mostly has to stay healthy and shoot like itself. Of all the teams the box score got wrong last year, the Devils are the one I would put money on to make the standings honest in 2026-27, and this time, honest means up.