Despite having won four of their last five games, New Jersey is still well out of the playoff race, and it's becoming increasingly likely they'll be sellers come deadline day.
Lou Lamoriello wants to make the playoffs, but the reality is the Devils are going to miss them for the fourth time in five years.
Some thoughts:
1) Though New Jersey has picked up eight of a possible 10 points, the Devils are still eight points back of Boston for the final wild card. That's a ton of ground to make up late, especially with the Bruins having a game in hand. When you factor in that Florida and Ottawa are both ahead of New Jersey with games in hand, and that Philadelphia is four points ahead with the same amount of games played, the writing is on the wall. New Jersey isn't a very good team, and they'd have to win a ton of games to surpass all the teams in front of them. It's not happening.
2) Jaromir Jagr has now played eight consecutive games without recording a point. He truly looks like he's lost some confidence with his ice time being limited the way it is, which isn't good for a Devils team that needs to maximize the value of their assets. I'm sure there will be several suitors for Jagr, but the asking price might be taken down a notch with him struggling as well as essentially using the media to campaign for a trade.
3) Marek Zidlicky may not want to leave New Jersey, and that's his right, but if he's willing to go to a contender, the Devils should fetch a nice return. Cody Franson landed a 1st round pick - though he has more points but played on a higher scoring team - while Andrej Sekera brought in a protected 1st round pick and a pretty good prospect in Roland McKeown. A good case can be made that both Franson and Sekera are better than Zidlicky, but it's not a huge gap, so the return should be solid if he'll waive his NTC.
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