Here at Broad Street Hockey, we look at all other Metropolitan Division teams with disgust. They’re nasty! But we should always know our enemy, so let’s take a gander at what each divisional rival of our Philadelphia Flyers looks like heading into the 2025-26 NHL season.
Their offseason, in one sentence: A lot of tweaks around the edges, but it all pales in comparison to signing Luke Hughes long term.
Their biggest addition: Connor Brown, which isn’t that big of an addition; if you’re a major fan of Evgenii Dadonov, you can put him ahead of Brown, though the four-year, $3-million AAV contract Brown signed is far more impactful than the one-year, $1-million AAV deal that Dadonov is on. Brown never really took off with the Edmonton Oilers, and their bet that he’d rekindle some magic with Connor McDavid didn’t come to fruition. The Devils, meanwhile, can afford to move Brown around within their top nine, but expect him to play on the third line and move up only in the event of injury (or Ondrej Palat continuing to regress).
Their biggest loss: Nobody significant! Erik Haula (10 goals, 21 points in 69 games) and Tomas Tatar (seven goals, 17 points in 74 games) weren’t the most effective players in the Devils lineup, and the additions of Brown and Dadonov should be minor improvements. Sorry, Daniel Sprong fans: his stint in New Jersey didn’t look great, either, with only two points in 11 games, and he’s gone too. The Devils have an elite core, and all of them remain locked up–losing these fringe support players and deadline adds (like Brian Dumoulin) in the summer aren’t going to cripple their contending roster.
Other stuff they did: They signed 35-year old goaltender Jake Allen to a goofy five-year, $1.8-million AAV extension before he hit the free agency market. Allen’s a reliable backup, and surely would’ve found suitors over the summer, but a five-year term may’ve been something only the Devils were willing to offer him. It does create some concerns in net, as Jakob Markstrom is also 35 years old. Could relying on a tandem of 35-year old goaltenders come back to bite the Devils in the butt? Guess we’ll find out!
The main event, though, is signing Luke Hughes to a seven-year extension with a $9-million AAV. The Devils and Hughes got it done at the buzzer on October 1, which should give Hughes a preseason game or two to prepare for the coming regular season where the Devils remain Stanley Cup hopefuls.
Are they better or worse right now than when they started the offseason? Honestly, they’re pretty much the same: a bunch of fringe players went out the door, and some new support guys came in. At worst, they get the same sort of production from their depth; the better case scenario is the new guys find chemistry with the Devils’ elite core players that the previous dudes didn’t have. If the latter case plays out, the Devils are going to be quite the force in the Metropolitan Division.
Further development from young players (e.g. the Hughes brothers) would raise the roster’s floor considerably, not to mention productive seasons from Dawson Mercer and Simon Nemec. The main reason the Devils underwhelmed last year was poor injury luck: both Hughes brothers, Dougie Hamilton, and Jonas Siegenthaler all missed significant time, with Jack Hughes missing the playoffs due to a season ending injury. The Devils should be better this season, simply because there’s no way they have such rotten injury luck in back-to-back years.
The long-term outlook: Still pretty rosy, though the shine of their elite youth may be ebbing a bit. Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton never seem to be capable of staying healthy; Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, and Nico Hischier are all very good but, at this point, are established NHL veterans. Dawson Mercer may never fully live up to his draft pedigree. The only exciting wildcards are Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec, plus Anton Silayev who’s still a while away from NHL-ready.
The Devils’ window is wide open but, considering the talent on their roster, they need to get past the second round of the playoffs to prove they’re capable of being true Stanley Cup contenders. If this is another dud season, questions are going to arise over whether this core is capable of winning. That’s a concern for the future, though; right now, this team–on paper–is a force to be reckoned with.
