Don't Mess With The Metro

Hello hockey fans, hot take specialist Andy here. While readers are familiar with the rest of this site dedicated to discussing the various strengths of each Metropolitan division team, it’s time to knock them all down a peg. This is all for jokes, so put the pitchforks away as I present to you: The Mess that is the Metro

New Jersey Devils

You know how typically the first few questions on a test are easy? Writing about why the Devils are bad is like being handed a history question and the first question is “What year are we in right now?” And about 98% of the Hockey world would all put down “2017”. This would of course be the correct answer because most of us live in the present. Keyword: most.

See for many Devils fans, it’s still 2012. Carly Rae Jepsen’s atop the charts, London’s about to host the Olympics, and apparently I’m about to graduate high school. And the Devils? Why it was the best year you folks have had since Mark Zuckerberg was some 19 year old Harvard nerd yet to even come up with Facebook. Your team just went to the Stanley Cup Finals after missing the playoffs the year before. So naturally you’re gonna bask in it for a bit…

Oh, has it been 5 years already?

Well let’s just go down the list of all that has transpired since then: You let your star center go back home right before his prime. You get off to a good start, then missed the playoffs. Your star sniper that cost the Devils three draft picks in order to cheat the salary cap leaves for Russia, in year two of a 15 year contract nonetheless. You sign an ageless wonder in Jagr thinking he’ll bring you back to the playoffs. You miss the playoffs. You let the face of your franchise go to the Blues. You fire your coach and trade the aforementioned ageless wonder. You miss the playoffs. You bring in Palmieri thinking now you can contend. You miss the playoffs. You bring in Taylor Hall thinking now you can contend. You miss the playoffs.

Finally you manage to suck bad enough that you win the first overall pick, and now had the honor of drafting from a class whose best prospects would’ve been taken with the 6th or 7th picks in 2015 or 2016. But hey, this is the Devils! You guys will be just fine with an offense that has a top line, a third line, and two lines composed of AHLers, right? And congrats, you got MoJo, who got almost 60 points. Put anyone on a team with Ovi, Backstrom, Kuzy, Oshie, etc and they’re gonna put up at least 55 points a season also.

I was planning on skipping covering your defense because your front office did that too. Oh, did they just sign Will Butcher? Congrats, the kid goes from playing at the college level to shouldering top 2 minutes in a division with Crosby, Ovi, Panarin, JT, Giroux, Nash, etc. I’m sure that won’t screw up his growth any. Besides, when last year’s Hobey Baker award winner signed with an NHL team, wasn’t he going to be a bust? Gee, I wonder why the narrative flipped…

Cory Schneider came off his worst statistical year. He is 31. But heaven forbid I mention that to a Devils fan, of course. You'll bring up the fact that the crosstown rival netminder had a bad year also, despite 1) still posting better numbers than Cory, and 2) being 4 years older. The same way you’ll continue to bring up Henrique every chance you get. Congrats, like a frat boy or the average Barstool writer, the man peaked at age 21! He’s a third liner that you occasionally throw out there to get top minutes because of one playoff run half a decade ago. Speaking of peaking when Mitt Romney was running for president, congrats on signing Drew Stafford. Nice for him to make one more North American paycheck before heading to the SHL.

This isn’t 2011-12 anymore. You can’t just go from trash one year to playoff team and cup finalist the next. You’re still rebuilding. But hey, at least you’ll get plenty of Rangers and Flyers fans to fill your empty arena when they come to town.

PS: Almost forgot, the Sixers own you. Let that marinate.