If you aren’t improving, what’s the point?
Every team in the NHL is trying to do better this season than they did previously. One team pushing that has done that at the quarter mark of the 2024-25 season is the New Jersey Devils.
This past summer, they acquired a slew of players, including (but not limited to) Jake Allen, Jacob Markstrom, Brett Pesce, and Stefan Noesen.
The Devils’ goaltending so far this season has been sensational. Pesce has been the veteran presence that Luke Hughes needs to help him learn the ins and outs of being an NHL defender. But Noesen has been nothing short of a revelation offensively.
The 31-year-old forward has recorded 18 points in 23 games. That has him producing at a 0.78-points-per-game pace. At the time of this writing, he is on pace to smash his previous career high of 37 points.
He could nearly double that total by the end of this season. If he continues to produce at this level, he could finish the year with 64 points.
Something is clicking between Noesen and the rest of the powerplay unit. He sees the same amount of ice time with the man advantage as in 2022-23. He finished that season with 15 points on the man advantage — he currently has seven powerplay points this year.
More impressively, 10 of his 18 points have come from goals. His career high is 14, a record that he set last season.
I don’t think anyone envisioned this kind of production from the gritty forward when he signed a three-year $2.75-million contract this past summer.
But no one is complaining, not while the Devils sit in first place in their division and overall in the Eastern Conference.
How’s that for improvement?
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