Happy 2026! I hope you and yours had a fun and safe New Years Eve and Day. Now that the festivities have died down, it’s time to look ahead to what this fresh year of New Jersey Devils hockey will bring us. Last week, we went over the top 10 Devils storylines of 2025
, so I figured we should do the same exercise for 2026. Except, of course, instead of diagnosing the year that just happened, we’ll be prognosticating about the year ahead.One caveat before we get into it: I’ll try my best not to double
up on stories from 2025. Obviously some choices from last week’s edition of this article are longer term stories that could easily make this list, and spoiler alert, this article will contain at least a little redundancy from the 2025 version. But in general, we’re going to try to come up with fresh storylines to watch for.
So with that out of the way, let’s get to what I anticipate will be the biggest, most discussed, most impactful stories of 2026 for the New Jersey Devils.
10. Devils At The Olympics
For the first time in forever, the NHL will be sending players to the Winter Olympics, and the Devils will have lots of representation. Jack Hughes (USA), Jesper Bratt and Jacob Markstrom (Sweden), Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, and Jonas Siegenthaler (Switzerland), Simon Nemec (Slovakia), and Ondrej Palat (Czechia) will all be suiting up for their respective home countries in Italy. And while the Olympics might serve as a fun little side quest in the middle of the NHL season that people will be interested in, I’m going to assume lots of (if not most) Devils fans will be mostly keeping an eye on the Olympics to make sure nobody gets seriously hurt. A major injury to someone like Hughes or Hischier or Bratt could completely derail New Jersey’s already tumultuous season.
9. Metropolitan Changing Of The Guard?
I’ll be very curious to see if the Metropolitan Division experiences some significant shifts in power in 2026. The Hurricanes aren’t going anywhere, but the Capitals, Rangers, and Penguins have reigned at or near the top of the Metro for a long time now, and each of them appears to be on the downswing to varying degrees. The Capitals are aging a little more gracefully but their core is downright ancient. Meanwhile the Rangers have been sliding since last season, and the Penguins are getting dangerously close to bottom-of-the-league territory. On the flip side of the coin, the Blue Jackets have a ton of young talent that could pop soon. The Islanders turned over their front office over the summer, traded franchise defenseman Noah Dobson for lots of draft capital, and now have Matthew Schaefer potentially leading them to big things. And the Flyers have been bad since the Covid Bubble Playoffs of 2020, but they too have young talent emerging. This doesn’t have to do with the Devils directly, but the state of the rest of the division obviously impacts them significantly. So I’ll be curious to see how things look at the end of this season and the beginning of the next one.
8. The Next Generation
By next generation, I’m referring to the next wave of prospects. If I had to guess, Mikhail Yegorov and Lenni Hameenaho are the two prospects that Devils fans are most excited about, with Anton Silayev close behind. There’s also Seamus Casey (if you can still call him a prospect), Nico Daws (ditto), Ethan Edwards, and Shane Lachance at the top of the prospect pool. New Jersey has to hope a few of those players turn into solid contributors at some point, and frankly, one of them needs to turn into at least a borderline star if the Devils want to keep up with the rest of the NHL as the current core ages. The state of the pool will be a big story to keep an eye on as 2026 goes on.
7. Markstrom Bounceback?
Jacob Markstrom had an awful start to the 2025-26 season, which made it even more baffling that general manager Tom Fitzgerald extended him when he did. Through his first 16 games of the season (a stretch that included a trip to IR), Markstrom posted a ghastly .875 save percentage. This culminated in his worst game of the season on December 11 in Tampa Bay, when he allowed three goals on seven shots and was pulled in the first period, en route to an 8-4 loss for the Devils. But since that catastrophe against the Lightning, Markstrom has quietly been excellent. In five games since, he’s posted a .932 save percentage to help get his season back on track. We obviously need to see more before we declare that Markstrom is back, but his performance in the second half of this season (as well as the 2026 portion of next season) will be a huge story to watch. A lot of the Devils’ future success depends on Markstrom.
6. Playoffs?
This of course will be a major plot thread into the spring. Will New Jersey make the playoffs this season? It seemed like a foregone conclusion after they rattled off an eight-game winning streak in October. But a raft of injuries and incredibly poor offensive performance has since conspired to torpedo the Devils’ season. Certainly not to the point where a playoff berth is out of reach, but enough to make us all question whether New Jersey actually has what it takes to get back to the dance. Which, quite frankly, is unacceptable with a core this talented, but that’s a story for another day. New Jersey has not made the postseason in back-to-back seasons since 2008-09 and 2009-10, which is complete insanity. If they fail to make the playoffs this season, I get the feeling we will finally see serious changes in this organization.
5. Trade Deadline, Entry Draft, And Free Agency
We’re now getting into the territory of storylines that could have huge long-term ramifications, as opposed to single-year stories. I’m lumping all of these together because they’re big stories every year, and they all revolve around player acquisition, so they seem like a natural fit to group them up. With the trade deadline a few months away, we’ll see if Tom Fitzgerald is actually capable of doing his job, or if he’ll be too scared and/or too hamstrung by his own NMC obsession to add the offensive talent this team is desperate for. Then in the offseason, I’m sure we’ll all have a lot of fun speculating on and analyzing the NHL draft and the opening of free agency. All these avenues toward reshaping the team will be a big story to watch in 2026.
4. Second Contracts For Simon Nemec And Arseny Gritsyuk
Simon Nemec and Arseny Gritsyuk are impending restricted free agents at the end of the season. Your mileage may vary on how highly you think of each of them, but there’s no denying that they are big parts of the Devils’ next wave of young talent. Because both players are in the final years of the deals, they are both eligible to sign an extension at any time (Nemec became eligible over the summer, Gritsyuk became eligible on January 1). Whether it happens in-season or during the offseason, potential extensions for Nemec and Gritsyuk will have massive impacts on the Devils’ future.
3. Quinn Hughes’ Contract Situation
We talked about him in last week’s story, and I hate going back to the well here, but it’s a story too big to ignore. Quinn Hughes, now of the Minnesota Wild in case you’ve forgotten, will have one year remaining on his current deal after this season. It will be fascinating to see what this summer holds for the eldest Hughes, as he becomes eligible to sign an extension on July 1. The timeframe I’ll be keeping an eye on the most is July 1-September 15. Why September 15? Because the new Collective Bargaining Agreement begins on September 16. A major part of that new CBA is lowering the maximum contract length from eight years to seven years for players re-signing with their own team, and from seven years to six years for players signing with a new team. That means the Wild can offer something to Quinn that nobody else can: Potentially two extra seasons of security and money. There is a HUGE difference in money a star player can secure on an eight-year deal versus a six-year deal, so don’t be surprised to see Quinn take that windfall if Minnesota offers it to him over the summer. The entire Quinn Hughes saga might not be completed by September 15, but it will be a highly intriguing time to watch what happens with him. Either way, whether Quinn ends up with New Jersey or not in the near future, we’ll get plenty of answers on that front in 2026.
2. Tom Fitzgerald’s Future
Another story that we touched in the 2025 edition of this piece, and in that version, I had Fitzgerald’s performance and job security as the number one story of 2025. But for 2026, there is one story more important than that, which we’ll get to momentarily. As for Fitzgerald, I won’t go over every detail again since we did a lot of that last time. Just know that this will be a huge story to monitor for obvious reasons. Will Fitzgerald get his walking papers at some point in 2026? If so, the search for the next general manager will of course have a massive impact on the organization, from the players to the coaches to the rest of the front office. On the other hand, if Fitzgerald stays, his actions entering 2026-27 will come under intense focus. Will he do more of the same, or will he actually get out of his comfort zone and take some bold action? Time will tell, and it will be a major story to keep an eye on.
1. Nico Hischier Becomes Eligible For A Contract Extension
To me, this is the no-doubt top story to watch in 2026. Fitzgerald’s future is important, but it’s not close to Nico Hischier’s future. The captain of this team, the heartbeat of this team, and one of the best players in the NHL, Hischier will be entering the final year of his long-term deal that he signed under the late, great Ray Shero. As such, he will be eligible for a contract extension on July 1. Like we talked about with Quinn Hughes, Hischier will have a window between July 1-September 15 where he can sign an eight-year extension. If he doesn’t sign an extension before September 16, the Devils can only offer him a maximum of seven years on a new deal. This story could potentially spill into 2027 if Fitzgerald isn’t proactive enough to get this done. If he is wise, he will make it so this is a major storyline for 2026 and 2026 only.
Final Thoughts And Your Take
I’m sure I omitted some important storylines, but to me, these are the top stories to watch in 2026. We might not get closure on all of them, but even if we don’t, that in and of itself will cause ripple effects for the Devils organization.
What do you think of this list? What stories would you move up or down? What stories did I miss that you would put on the list? As always, thanks for reading!
