Two weeks ago, in the first edition of these rankings, I had the Devils in the bottom five. It didn’t feel like an off-the-board pick, given they were coming off a 63-point season, they hadn’t made any truly significant moves in the offseason, and had started the year 0-2-0 while losing by identical 5-2 scores to a pair of non-playoff teams in the Flyers and Red Wings.
Hey, remember when I prefaced that column with a half-dozen caveats about it being too early? That Devils ranking may have been too early.