If there’s ever been a “Hockey For Dummies” book ever written (plot twist, there has), the very first page should say “score more goals than you allow the other team to score.” The New Jersey Devils, and the league’s other 31 teams, have taken that advice to heart as they try to improve for this upcoming season.

Some teams have seemed to follow that advice better than others. For example, the Ottawa Senators added 40-goal scorer Alex Debrincat for a pretty cheap price. The Devils major offensive addition this offseason was Ondrej Palat, who said this in a recent interview with NHL.com:

“We need to take care of our own end because we are a skilled enough group to score goals. We’re going to score, but we need to help our goalies protect the net.”

Can the Devils score enough goals? Does this team have enough offense? Let’s take a look at the team’s offense, as it sits now. More specifically, what can we expect from Ondrej Palat?

Comparing Offense to Last Seasons Playoff Teams

Maybe we’re over simplifying this, but let’s compare the Devils’ offense last season to last year’s playoff teams. The Devils ranked 19^th in goals for per game at 2.99. Being just that bit below 3.00 goals per game still kept the Devils out of the NHL’s bottom third, where they were in 2020-2021 (26^th) and 2019-2020 (24^th).

Two teams below the Devils made the playoffs last season. The 21^st placed Dallas Stars scored 2.84 goals per game and were one place behind the 20^th placed Los Angeles Kings with 2.87 goals per game. Even if both those teams had first round exits, they still went the distance in a seven-game series.

Taking the average of average goals for per game for the 16-playoff teams left us with 3.41 goals per game in the regular season. Assuming that a team needs to reach that mark to make the playoffs in 2021-2022 means the Devils have to find a way to add 0.42 goals per game. For what it’s worth, four teams between that average and the Devils’ 2.99 goals for per game marked missed the playoffs. No teams above the 3.41 goals for per game mark missed the playoffs.

Offensive Predictions

The Devils are going into this season with pretty much the same offensive lineup, plus the addition of Palat. The biggest subtraction on offense might be Ty Smith who had tried to play the role of an offensive defenseman. Palat had 49 points in 79 games, good enough for 0.63 points per game. Jack Hughes might be skilled, and Palat might compare him to Nikita Kucherov, but unfortunately we’d have to consider whichever duo he plays with just a step below those of Kucherov and Steven Stamkos.

To get our projections, let’s average out the drop in production from Palat’s former linemates to his projected linemates (as per 2021-2022 numbers) to get an idea of how Palat will perform. Hughes and Yegor Sharangovich scored 102 combined points in 152 combined games, good enough for an average of 0.67 points per game.

Meanwhile in Tampa, Stamkos and Kucherov combined for 175 points in 128 combined regular season games. Remember, Kucherov missed a good portion of the season with injury and only played 47 regular season games. Let’s keep these numbers clean and go with an estimate here: Stamkos and Kucherov had twice the amount of offense that Sharangovich and Hughes did (2.02 times more, to be exact).

But They Were Young!

Okay, we’ll cut Sharangovich and Hughes some slack here. Both are young players, and Hughes was injured for a decent portion of last year. Let’s go with extremely conservative estimates here and Sharangovich ends up being a 50-point player and Hughes a 90-point player this season. Let’s say each plays 70 games just for sake of using a round number and preparing for any potential injuries. That would put them at 140 points in exactly 140 games, for a perfect one point per game combined between the two of them.

Those numbers would put Sharangovich and Hughes expected offence at around 75% of Kucherov and Stamkos’ offense (once again, we rounded up just a bit here). Let’s assume that we can expect 75% of Palat’s offense from last season, using that 0.63 points per game number, Palat would finish with 47.25 points. Let’s be optimistic and say he’s a 50 point guy.