Since their arrival in the Garden State, the New Jersey Devils have based their identity on building a team from the net out and playing strong, stingy defense; it may not have been successfully implemented right away, but the philosophy has always been there. It helps when you have rosters that include names such as Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Ken Daneyko, Brian Rafalski, and Slava Fetisov among others; even more recently the Devils have had strong defenders such as Andy Greene and Adam Larsson.
Going into 2016-17, Andy Greene is the last remaining life raft of strong Devils defense corps; that’s not to say that New Jersey won’t wind up having a strong defense this year, but there are certainly a lot more question marks that need answering than in previous seasons.