New Jersey has played six games and scored the first goal once, on Tuesday in Detroit. In the other five it went behind, sometimes early and sometimes on the power play, and spent the night chasing. The Devils are 3-3 with 16 goals for and 22 against, and the conversation around the team has turned to habits, starts and whether the core under Jack Hughes needs shaking up.
The first-goal record is real and it matters. It is also a symptom. Through six games New Jersey has generated more five-on-five offence than any team in the league, by a distance. What it has not done is finish its chances or stop the other team's, and those two things are what put it behind.
Why does scoring first matter so much for New Jersey?
Because the Devils have been good when they lead and poor when they chase, more so than most teams. Last season they scored first in 34 of 82 games, tied for 27th in the league, and the split was stark.
| New Jersey, 2025-26 | Games | Record | Points % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scored first | 34 | 27-6-1 | .809 |
| Allowed the first goal | 48 | 15-31-2 | .333 |
Across the league last season, the team that scored first won 67.3 per cent of the time, so leading early is always an advantage. New Jersey's gap was wider than usual: its .794 winning percentage after scoring first was fifth-best in the league, while its .313 after falling behind sat in the bottom half. This season it has been behind first in five of six games.
The losses tell the story: 6-0 on Long Island, 5-3 to Utah, 4-1 to Ottawa. The wins came from a 3-2 overtime comeback against Philadelphia, a 4-1 recovery against Vancouver and Tuesday's 5-4 overtime win in Detroit.
How can a team this good at five-on-five be 3-3?
By missing the net it is pounding. New Jersey is averaging 36.3 shots a game, most in the league. At five-on-five it is creating 3.45 expected goals per 60 minutes, also first, and taking 63.2 per cent of the high-danger shots, fifth. It controls the puck: 62.4 per cent of the shot attempts.
The goals have not followed. New Jersey has scored 16 on chances worth 22.6, the second-largest shortfall in the league. Goaltending has made it worse: the Devils have allowed 3.7 more goals than expected, 25th. Jake Allen is at .885 in four starts and Nico Daws at .824 in two. Add those together and a team that has outplayed its opponents has a goal differential of minus six.
Who is not finishing?
Nearly everyone up front, but three players stand out.
| Devil, 2026-27 | Goals | Shots | Expected goals | Goals vs expected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Timo Meier | 0 | 25 | 1.76 | -1.76 |
| Jack Hughes | 2 | 25 | 3.66 | -1.66 |
| Dawson Mercer | 0 | 15 | 1.21 | -1.21 |
| Jesper Bratt | 2 | 19 | 2.24 | -0.24 |
| Nico Hischier | 3 | 13 | 2.47 | +0.53 |
Hughes has 25 shots and the chances of a player who should have nearly four goals. Meier has 25 shots and nothing to show for them. Mercer has 15 shots and no goals. None of those numbers says much about ability over six games. Together they say the Devils have left about four and a half goals on three sticks.
This is not new, and that is the uncomfortable part. Last season New Jersey scored 35.2 goals fewer than its chances were worth, the worst finishing in the league. We wrote in September that a shortfall that size usually corrects. It has not started to.
What should New Jersey change?
The goaltending, before anything else. The skaters are doing the part a coach can control. Six games of 60 per cent of the expected goals is an elite process, and breaking up a forward group that produces it because the pucks have not gone in would be a classic early-season mistake. Meier and Mercer are shooting blanks in a tiny sample, which is the worst possible moment to sell either of them.
The net is a different matter. Allen is 36 and Daws has struggled. Last season the Devils lost 3.5 goals in goal across the year, and Jacob Markstrom, now in Florida, was 11.9 below expected in 44 games. A team that creates this much cannot afford to keep giving goals back. The penalty kill, at 70.6 per cent and 27th, is the other leak, and two of the first goals against this season came on the power play.
The case for worrying, stated fairly
The argument that this is more than bad luck goes like this. A finishing shortfall that lasts two seasons is no longer noise, and the same core has now spent more than a year generating chances it cannot convert. Teams that keep falling behind start forcing plays, and the Devils won less than a third of the games in which they allowed the first goal last season. If the problem is the shooters themselves, waiting for regression just wastes another year of the prime of Hughes.
The other side is that expected goals were designed for exactly this situation. Over a full season, the team creating the most chances usually ends up near the top of the standings, and New Jersey's chance creation is better this October than it was last year. Shooting percentages for individual forwards swing wildly over six games, and the goaltending is a problem that can be fixed with one move.
The Devils are a very good five-on-five team with a goaltending and finishing problem, and that problem happens to show up in the first period.
What to watch
The next ten games will tell us more than the first six. If New Jersey keeps above 55 per cent of the expected goals and the shooting percentage comes back toward average, the first goals will start arriving and the record will follow. If it keeps chasing games with this process, the next move should be in the crease. Every Devils number is on the team stats page.