Welcome to another year of All About The Jersey season previews! As has become tradition in our culture, we’ll be giving you a multi-part series in which we look at various aspects of the team, such as defensemen, forwards, goaltending, and so on. It was a long offseason for our New Jersey Devils, after suffering through a demoralizing 2025-26 in which the team failed to qualify for the postseason. In fact it was so demoralizing that it led to big changes in the organization, with longtime franchise
staple Tom Fitzgerald fired as general manager and replaced by New Jersey’s own Sunny Mehta. It was an interesting first offseason under Mehta, and we’ll cover all angles of it over the course of these previews.
For the 2026-27 campaign, we’re kicking things off with a look at the defensemen. What additions and subtractions were made between last season and this one? How did the defense actually perform in 2025-26? What potential pairings might we be looking at as we head into the season? We’ll tackle all of that today.
Let’s get to it.
Additions and Subtractions
In stark contrast to the forwards and the goaltending, which saw significant changes this offseason, the defense has remained remarkably stable from year to year heading into 2026-27…with one notable exception.
In the lead-up to the NHL draft in June, Sunny Mehta made his first big move as Devils general manager: He traded Simon Nemec (and Maxim Tsyplakov) to the Calgary Flames for two first round picks, a second round pick, and defenseman prospect Etienne Morin. Calgary turned right around and handed Nemec a long-term deal worth $7.25M AAV. Which, coincidentally, is the exact AAV that Mehta signed Luke Evangelista to upon his acquisition at the beginning of September. Not to mention, Mehta used one of those first rounders as a centerpiece of the Evangelista trade with the Nashville Predators. So in essence, Mehta traded Nemec for Evangelista and a first round pick.
I am very sad that it didn’t work out for Nemec here in New Jersey. When you select a player second overall in a draft, you expect a star. Nemec flashed some star potential during his time here, from his intelligence in the offensive zone to his finishing touch to his puck-moving ability. But in the end, his complete inability to play a lick of defense absolutely tanked his value. It erased all the good he did on the offensive end, and in my opinion, it made the decision to move on from him upon his reaching restricted free agency an easy one.
It’s possible Nemec puts all his tools together and explodes in Calgary, but frankly, I don’t see it. His underlying numbers have mostly been mediocre to awful, and this past season was no exception. His defensive metrics specifically were atrocious, with some of the worst per-60 rates on the entire team. And putting aside the numbers, just going by my own personal eye test, I saw a shockingly lazy player in the defensive zone. He just sort of floated around out there, waiting for one of his teammates to make a play. He never kept his stick on the ice. He never showed much defensive awareness. He constantly put his teammates in bad spots, forcing them to cover for Nemec and draw themselves out of position, breaking down the entire Devils’ defensive structure in the process. As mentioned, he has intriguing offensive capabilities. But the juice wasn’t worth anywhere close to the squeeze. I wish Nemec well, but unfortunately, count me among the group of Devils fans who think Nemec’s departure will be addition by subtraction.
In Nemec’s place come two veteran additions from the offseason: Declan Chisholm and Vladislav Kolyachonok. We’ll start with Kolyachonok since he’s a bit more straightforward to talk about. In the offseason, Mehta signed Kolyachonok in free agency to a league-minimum deal. He played in 13 games last season (11 with Dallas, two with Boston), averaging 12:32 time on ice per game. Kolyachonok’s high in average TOI was in his rookie season in 2021-22, when he logged 15:51 per game with the Arizona Coyotes. Kolyachonok has accumulated only 87 career games in the NHL, so there isn’t a whole lot of track record there. But Mehta saw something in him, enough to bring him in on a cheap deal. He posted some promising advanced numbers last season, at least in his stint with Dallas. So perhaps Mehta sees some hidden potential in Kolyachonok. He looks primed to start the season as the seventh or eighth defenseman on the organizational depth chart.
Then there’s Chisholm. Mehta has been downright effusive in his praise of Chisholm since he acquired him in a trade with the Washington Capitals over the summer. Chisholm doesn’t have much more experience than Kolyachonok, appearing in only 125 NHL contests over his career. But he did play more in 2025-26: A 26 game stint with Washington, in which he posted one goal and six assists in decidedly third pair minutes (13:44 per game). Taking a look at his underlying numbers, his partial season in Washington wasn’t all that great. It wasn’t a trainwreck, but he was underwater in a lot of key metrics. In his only full(ish) season, however, he shined. Chisholm played 66 games with Minnesota in 2024-25, and the numbers showed that he drove play very well while averaging 17 minutes per night. He’s been tabbed as a puck-mover, and as someone who Mehta says has been “dynamic” (his word, not mine) offensively from time to time. The New Jersey blueline is in desperate need of some more puck-moving ability and offense in general, so if Mehta hits on this Chisholm flier, we could be looking at one heck of a trade.
Aside from them, they’re not exactly newcomers, but keep an eye on Seamus Casey, Ethan Edwards, and Anton Silaev. Casey of course has been getting NHL time for a couple seasons now, but Edwards and Silaev have yet to make their NHL debuts. If injuries hit the big club, these are most likely the next men up from the youth movement in the system.
How Did The Defense Perform In 2026-27?
In 2024-25, the New Jersey blueline did not contribute much at all on offense. They were able to get by anyway because that unit was so good at locking down the defensive end. Fast forward to last season and the defensemen once again failed to deliver much offense, while this time being much leakier defensively. It was a disastrous combination, and it played a huge role in tanking New Jersey’s season.
Taking a look at the Natural Stat Trick numbers, only Dougie Hamilton looks somewhat good. Everyone else is either slightly above breakeven at best and deep in the red at worst in all the major play-driving metrics. Their rate stats were all pretty mediocre to bad across the board as well. It’s ironic that Hamilton is the one Devils defenseman who can hold his head up proudly in this regard since he was the one who got healthy scratched in anticipation of a trade last season. Between Sheldon Keefe’s inexplicable usage of Hamilton as a shutdown defender and Tom Fitzgerald’s utter incompetence in handling the Hamilton trade situation, it’s a miracle Hamilton didn’t mutiny at any point in 2025-26. And not only did he not mutiny, he ALSO found time to lead all Devils defensemen in goals (12) and points (39) a season ago. He’s not a perfect player, and he’s still probably overpaid relative to his overall value, but I will die on the hill that Hamilton remains underrated amongst a lot of Devils fans. Even far from his peak, he can still bring the goods.
And it seems Mehta agrees, as he spoke highly of Hamilton in the offseason and, notably, did not trade him. Hamilton has two years left on his contract. If he can continue to age gracefully (injuries notwithstanding), then he can continue to provide value for the Devils.
As for the rest of the blueline, there is still a lot to dissect aside from the numbers. Brett Pesce and Johnny Kovacevic missed most of the year due to injury, playing 37 and 34 games respectively. Pesce in particular is an important name to watch. When he first went down toward the end of last October, that’s when the Devils really started to fall apart defensively. Meanwhile, Kovacevic returned from his April 2025 knee injury in January, and just did not look anywhere close to the same. If Pesce and Kovacevic can stay healthy (and in Kovacevic’s case, regain his form) that would go a long way toward returning this unit to their place among the better bluelines in the league.
Elsewhere, Jonas Siegenthaler followed his weird “one season on, one season off” trend with another bad year in 2025-26. He has alternated stellar and awful seasons since 2022-23, and since last year was a disappointing one, we’re all but guaranteed to get good Jonas this season. That’s how it works, right?
Brenden Dillon played admirably for the type of player he is last season. He brought no offensive touch at all, but he played solid defense, continued to bring a physical presence, and remained a valued leader in the locker room. I was mildly surprised he wasn’t traded this offseason, and now that we’re here, I don’t see him getting shipped out before maybe the deadline (unless a certain Wild defender suddenly becomes available). Dillon didn’t contribute all that much in 2025-26, but he didn’t hurt the cause all that much either. I’m guessing we see more of the same in the final year of his contract.
Finally, there’s Luke Hughes. The Devils’ newest $9M man had a bit of a disappointing season. His play-driving numbers started out pretty poorly, the point totals weren’t there, and to top it all off, he missed time due to a shoulder injury. However, once he got back from the Olympic break, he seemed like a new player. The Devils in general played much better post-Olympics, but Hughes really took it to another level. Heck, you could argue his renaissance came earlier. According to Hockey Stat Cards, after hitting his nadir in mid-December, Hughes rose quicker than an Amish barn in overall game score. Then he got hurt in January, came back after the Olympics, and continued to ascend. Hughes still needs to put it all together, but I personally find his rise from the ashes from mid-December on to be particularly encouraging for his future potential. And one more piece of encouraging evidence? His explosion in March/April was done without his usual security blanket, Pesce, hopefully proving that Hughes can drive a top pair on his own.
Projecting The Pairs
This one should be relatively straightforward.
For the nine-millionth season in a row, Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Siegenthaler look set to skate on a pair together. This was the most common defense pairing at 5-on-5 for New Jersey last season (913:13 minutes together), and they’ve been reunited early on in training camp as well. Get ready to see a healthy dose of Hamilton and Sigenthaler once more in 2026-27.
Elsewhere, Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce will most likely be paired together again this season as well. They’ve spent a ton of time together since Pesce signed with New Jersey two seasons ago, and despite the fact that Pesce missed almost 50 games last year, his pairing with Hughes was the third-most common on the team at 5-on-5 (377:04 minutes; and if you’re wondering what pair was between Hamilton-Siegenthaler and Hughes-Pesce, that would be Nemec-Dillon at 552:20). This is almost certainly going to be the other top four pairing on the squad.
Finally, look for Brenden Dillon to hold down the bottom pair with either Johnny Kovacevic or Declan Chisholm. With Kovacevic nursing a knee injury that Sunny Mehta says the club will take “day by day”, Chisholm has hopped into the top six to skate with Dillon in training camp. It feels like a bit much to have either a $4M AAV player or even a $1.6M AAV player as the regular scratch all season long, but as of right now, this appears to be the plan on the third pairing.
What other pairings could work? Dillon-Hamilton performed quite well last season (54.47 xG%), albeit in a relatively small 112:59 sample size. Speaking of Hamilton, I was disappointed to see that a pairing with him and Hughes only generated a 48.65 xG% last season in about 96 minutes. I still think that pairing has potential though, as that could be an offensive juggernaut of a pair. Of course, if Keefe wants a pure shutdown unit again, he could reunite the Siegenthaler-Kovacavic duo. They played sparingly together in 2025-26 (130:55 minutes) and it really didn’t go well (39.48 xG%). But they had so much success in 2024-25 that I think it’s at least worth a shot to see if they can rekindle their magic at some point.
Final Thoughts And Your Take
Bottom line: New Jersey’s defense needs to be better than last season. Hughes needs to take another step. Siegenthaler needs to bounce back. Pesce needs to stay healthy. Kovacevic needs to regain his 2024-25 form. Chisholm and Kolyachonok (and Silaev and Casey and Edwards) need to provide sturdy depth. I admit that’s a lot of qualifiers, but individually, they should all be well within reach. The Devils collapsed last season in no small part thanks to their blueline faltering in every way. They didn’t defend well enough, they didn’t contribute anywhere close to enough offense, and the depth wasn’t ready when forced into action. As currently constructed, even if this defense corps hits close to their ceiling this year, I think it will be a good but not great unit. I suppose Luke Hughes exploding can change all that, but while I expect him to take a step forward, I can’t expect him to jump to being Norris-caliber this season. I’m a bit concerned with this unit as we enter 2026-27, but Mehta seemed to trust this group enough to not make any major changes. I trust him to be correct.
What do you think of the Devils’ defensemen as we enter the season? Are you surprised that we didn’t see more significant changes? What is your level of confidence that Luke Hughes can take that next step? Who besides Hughes do you think the Devils need to rely on the most? As always, thanks for reading!
