The New Jersey Devils went into the 2025-26 season as Metropolitan Division contenders. They had Jack Hughes , who went on to lead the team with 77 points. They had Nico Hischier . They had Dougie Hamilton , a foundational pillar of their blue line, who returned to log 66 games. They had a defense corps and goaltending tandem built to compete.
Instead, they finished 42-37-3, seventh in the Metropolitan Division under head coach Sheldon Keefe, watched 16 other teams qualify for the playoffs, and saw general manager Tom Fitzgerald depart the organization on April 6 before former Florida Panthers executive Sunny Mehta was brought in as GM on April 16 to rebuild the blueprint.
What exactly went wrong? Devils defenseman Brenden Dillon outlines why New Jersey was doomed from the start.
Brenden Dillon, who played every single game of that disappointing season, did not reach for comfortable explanations when he sat down with Donnie and Dhali recently.
Dillon has earned the right to talk. The 35-year-old Surrey, BC native is entering his 16th NHL season as a widely respected undrafted veteran who crossed the rare 1,000 career games milestone over the course of the rigorous 82-game campaign.
He brought exactly the kind of blue-line grit New Jersey expected when they signed him, leading the team with over 200 hits, blocking over 100 shots, and earning a nomination for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. He also watched the team around him fracture quietly and named what it was without being asked to.
"It was a disappointing season, no matter how you cut it, for the Devils, individually as a team," Dillon said. "Right on down from forwards to defense to goaltending. There's a reason why we weren't in the playoffs."
Dillon pointed at the whole roster and included himself in the verdict. But the most revealing part of what he said had nothing to do with on-ice performance.
"Unfortunately, we had a lot of those elephants in the room this year. Is this guy upset because this guy's got more ice time? I should be playing where that guy's playing. I wish I was playing with that guy as my winger or defense partner. It's hard enough to win in this league when you're healthy and just trying to beat the other team, let alone having other distractions going on.
"We just had way too many of those."
It is a frank account of what internal dysfunction actually looks like in a professional hockey locker room. Not physical fights or public blowups, but the steady accumulation of unspoken grievances about roles, ice time, and deployment that quietly erodes team chemistry over 82 games.
The most prominent example arrived publicly when reports surfaced regarding trade friction surrounding young defenseman Simon Nemec . Dillon spoke carefully about the 21-year-old Slovak defenseman with clear affection.
"Nemo has a bright future. He's a guy who wants the puck on his stick. He wants to be running a power play. We've got a lot of those guys here with Dougie Hamilton and Luke Hughes . That's above my pay grade in terms of how those decisions are going to shake out."
The Devils have a surplus of offensively gifted defensemen competing for the same power play time and top pairings. With Hamilton healthy for 66 games alongside the rapid rise of Luke Hughes, the internal hierarchy never stabilized.
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Nemec, Hamilton, and Hughes cannot all get what they want simultaneously, and the resulting friction contributed to a season that fell well short of what the roster was capable of delivering.
Incoming GM Sunny Mehta inherits every one of these questions heading into an offseason that needs real answers. Dillon's message for the players was direct.
"We're built to win now. Sunny wants us to win now. We're one of those teams that isn't going to be taken seriously next year because we weren't in the playoffs, and we're just one of those 16 on the outside looking in. That should piss us off."
