The New Jersey Devils have qualified for the NHL playoffs once in the last nine years and twice in the past 11. Over this 11-year time period, the Devils have had a point percentage over .500 just four times. To put it simply, the New Jersey Devils have been one of the worst teams in the NHL for the past 11 seasons. 

Why has this been the case? Why has the once borderline dynasty New Jersey Devils fallen on such hard times? It seems like a very complex and complicated question. But, after some analysis, the picture becomes quite clear. The simple answer is years and years of poor drafting.

Drafting Performance From 2001 Through 2014

The Numbers

From 2001 through 2014, New Jersey made 101 draft picks. Of those 101 selections, only 14 went on to play more than 200 career NHL games. Going through the list of those draftees the list drops to 11 who have played more than 300 games. Among those 11 are individuals like Cam Janssen (14 career points) and Jacob Josefson (64 career points) who, let’s face it, never really made pro-longed, meaningful NHL contributions.

That brings the list to nine: Zach Parise, Travis Zajac, Mark Fayne, Adam Henrique, Jon Merrill, Adam Larsson, Blake Coleman, Damon Severson, and Miles Wood. Those are the only nine skaters that the Devils have drafted from 2001 through 2014 who made a meaningful, pro-longed contributions in the NHL. 

The Comparisons

Interestingly enough, The Athletic conducted a study where they determined which teams have drafted the best and the worst since 2005. The below are the bottom five teams based off of Game Score Value Added (GSVA) wins. 

Team	GSVA Wins
Philadelphia Flyers	60.5
Buffalo Sabres	52.9
Calgary Flames	51.9
Vancouver Canucks	31.8
New Jersey Devils	31.4

The above baseline teams will then be used in helping demonstrate through different numbers just how extremely poor the Devils drafted between the years of 2001 through 2014.

The Canucks

First off, the Vancouver Canucks made 95 selections from 2001 through 2014. Of these selections, 15 played more than 200 NHL games, all 15 also played more than 300 NHL games. Of these 15, 13 can comfortably be described as making a meaningful NHL contribution during their careers for a pro-longed period of time. 

The Flames

Secondly, the Calgary Flames made 107 selections over the same time period. Of these picks, 21 played more than 200 NHL games. In total, 14 played 300 or more NHL games over their careers. With confidence, 16 of those 107 selections can be described as meaningful NHL contributors. 

The Sabres

Thirdly, the Buffalo Sabres made 116 picks from 2001 through 2014. Of those, 31 have played more than 200 career NHL games and 28 have played 300 or more. Examining the draftees as a whole, 32 of the 116 draftees seem to be meaningful NHL contributors.

The Flyers

The last team examined, the Philadelphia Flyers, made 103 selections from 2001 through 2014. Among those picks, 20 played over 200 career NHL games. Of those 20, 16 played in 300 or more. In total, from the 103 picks at least 20 (some are still developing) have made meaningful, pro-longed NHL contributions.

The Findings

The below table breaks down and gives a summary of the above analysis. As you can see, the New Jersey Devils, among the baseline teams taken from The Athletic’s study, rank last in percentage of team draftees that have played at least 200 career NHL games, 300 career NHL games, and that have turned into meaningful NHL contributors. 

	New Jersey Devils	Vancouver Canucks	Calgary Flames	Buffal Sabres	Philadelphia Flyers
Total Draftees	101	95	107	116	103
200-plus NHL Games Played (%)	13.86%	15.79%	16.62%	26.72%	19.42%
300-plus NHL Games Played (%)	10.89%	15.79%	13.08%	24.14%	15.53%
Meaningful NHL Contributors (%)	8.91%	13.68%	14.95%	27.59%	19.41%

The large gap in GSVA between the Devils and the top-28 is alarming (per the table summarizing The Athletic’s findings above). The findings and severity of such, albeit over a different time period, are also confirmed by the above analysis into how the Devils’ draft classes have fared in comparison to the NHL’s other poor drafting clubs.

In the end, make no mistake about it, from 2001 through 2014 the New Jersey Devils were the league’s worst drafting team, and it was by a large margin.

How Does It All Connect?

Poor drafting, no matter the sport, almost always results in a poor team. Take that poor drafting and extend it over a 13-year period and it is going to get even worse.

Of the five teams examined above, there has been a total of 18 playoff appearances between them, in a total of 55 seasons across the last 11 years. Of these 18, the Flyers make up six, the Canucks five (only twice in the past eight years), the Flames four, the Devils twice, and the Sabres once (none in the past 10 years). Additionally, just think about it holistically. If teams are not drafting NHL talent, they have none to pull from as the years go on, thus resulting in the lack of talent on their rosters.

In this case, the impact, especially in hockey, is usually delayed. For example, in the NHL it takes at least a couple of years for draftees to make an impact at the NHL-level. And this is for the early round picks, it can take three, even four season for drafted talent to make their mark.

So, as we saw in the Devils’ case, the team made the playoffs 13-years in a row until 2009-10. Then the bad stretch of hockey started. When this poor stretch of play started, that is when the year’s of bad drafting — from 2001 through 2014 — finally caught up. Given this bad drafting continued for such a long time, all the way until 2015, the team has struggled to get better. The timeline almost makes too much sense, 13-years of terrible draft and 11-plus years of extremely poor play.

Is it Getting Better?

Do not fret Devils fans, the drafting has improved instrumentally since former general manager Lou Lamoriello left in 2014 and former scout David Conte left in 2015. From 2015 to now, the Devils have almost drafted the same number of meaningful NHL contributors they did from 2001 through 2014 in not even half the time.

For this reason, the future should be considered bright and the last 11-years of poor performance should be coming to an end in the near future. Given the Devils’ prolonged period of perceived good drafting, we should not see another 11-year stretch like New Jersey has endured in a long time.