New Jersey beat Edmonton 4-3 in a shootout on Tuesday night, and by the time Arseny Gritsyuk tucked the winner past Tristan Jarry, half the fan base had the parade route picked out. Gritsyuk is getting hailed as a budding star, and Connor Hellebuyck's home debut is getting treated like a franchise-altering event. People are reading the win as the moment New Jersey became a genuine Stanley Cup contender.
The truth is a single shootout point in Game 16 of an 82-game season doesn't prove anything, and the people treating this one as a referendum are crediting the wrong night.
The night that mattered came in late October, when the Devils went out and got a three-time Vezina winner from Winnipeg. That's the move that changed what this team can do, and it happened before Hellebuyck had faced a single shot in red. NHL's own analytics shop said the trade alone could solidify New Jersey's case as a contender. Hellebuyck put it plainly after the deal: "I'm here to win, and the only thing I've got left (to fill) on my resume is a Stanley Cup." That's as honest as a player gets about what this is.
RatingSo spare me the idea that beating Edmonton validated it. The Oilers came in at 11-2-2, riding a three-game win streak and looking like the best team in the league on paper, and beating them in a skills competition is a nice line in the standings and not much else. Jarry had thrown back-to-back shutouts coming in, and the Devils needed more than seven periods to finally solve him. Jack Hughes scored twice, and Connor Brown, who spent two seasons in Edmonton and reached the Cup Final with them in 2024 and 2025, scored against his old team. It was a terrific, tense hockey game that settled no arguments.
Hellebuyck made 19 saves in his first home start and looked the part. The Devils have now won two straight and five of their last six, sitting second in the Metropolitan entering the night. That's real hockey. But the people who built the contender case built it on a goaltender with three Vezina Trophies and a front office that landed him without giving up a first-round pick or one of the young players they're counting on. The shootout was garnish.
The skeptics are right that you can't declare a Cup team in early November off one emotional win over a good opponent, and that the schedule is long. Where they go wrong is assuming the Devils haven't proven anything yet. They proved it the moment they decided to go all in on Hellebuyck now instead of later. The shootout just confirmed the roster can hang with the league's best on a given night, which was never really in doubt once the trade cleared.
Give Gritsyuk his flowers for the finish and Hellebuyck his for a clean home debut, but save the real credit for the people who put a goaltender of that caliber behind this group in the first place. That's the decision that makes New Jersey dangerous, and it would be just as true if Kasperi Kapanen had buried his attempt and the Oilers skated off with the extra point. A general manager who refused to wait made this a contender weeks before the shootout ever happened.
