I want to believe. I really do. I have watched these young Devils zip through the early part of the schedule with a blend of youth and talent that we haven't seen in New Jersey in years, and while they've look every bit like a playoff team, a voice in the back of my head demands caution.

The promising 5-1-1 showing in the preseason ... nice, but c'mon, those games don't even count.

The unexpected 6-1 start to the regular season that included a shootout win over the Tampa Bay, the best team in the NHL ... impressive, yeah, but that's a small sample size.

The division-best 11-4-2 record through 17 games that was capped this week with a wild rally from a three-goal deficit in Chicago ... great, for sure, but we're still in November!

Will it take 30 games to believe that what we're seeing on almost a nightly basis isn't a mirage? Will it take 50 games to assure skeptics that the dramatic turnaround for a year ago is real? Will we be watching -- and wondering -- all season about the staying power of this young team?

I couldn't come up with an answer on my own, so I asked a man who asked for patience from the moment he arrived in Newark two and a half years ago to start rebuilding this franchise.

I asked Ray Shero, and to my surprise, the general manager told me to stop wondering. The GM is not tapping the brakes. He believes that the Devils -- these confident, resilient, fun-to-watch Devils who are scoring goals in bunches and blowing up their rock-bottom expectations -- are the real deal.

"I said it midway through training camp. I said it after the first few practices," Shero said. "I told my staff halfway through training camp, 'I can feel that this is turning.' I've been through this before. You see it. You see the young players emerging. You see the culture emerging."

To be clear: Shero isn't guaranteeing that the Devils are going to maintain this ridiculous pace and crack 100 points this season. "There's a long way to go," he said, and history and logic tell you that the young players carrying this team will hit a wall eventually.

But Shero does believe that the Devils, as an organization, have finally turned a corner. He believes that the style of hockey is here to stay, that the young core of the team is in place, and most importantly, that the overall trend is up after some lean years.

"Our fans can see the vision we talked about two years ago with younger players," he said. "We have a ways to go, not just for this season, but with what we're trying to build. It takes time. But it's nice for the players and coaches to be rewarded a bit, and for the fans to be rewarded a bit, for what we're trying to do."

Reward is the word for it, too. Given the struggles of this once-mighty franchise over the past few seasons, fans would have signed up for that perch atop the Metropolitan Division if it meant winning every game 2-1 -- that was, after all, the blueprint for success during the Stanley Cup years.

But these are not your father's Devils. This is an entertaining, likable group that checks all the boxes. You want stars? Taylor Hall, with 19 points in 17 games, is playing like a No. 1 overall pic. You want underdogs? Brian Gibbons, with eight goals, already has topped his scoring total from 63 games in the American Hockey League two years ago.

Nico Hischier, the top pick in the 2017 draft, might not even be the best teenager on the roster. Jesper Bratt, a sixth-round pick with five goals and eight assists, deserves consideration for the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie for his two-way play this season.

Shero called hitting on a prospect like Bratt "found money." The GM is most impressed with how the rookies refuse to be treated like kids -- Hischier, he said, skated up to coach John Hynes after making a mistake in a recent game and told him, "Just (bleeping) bench me."

All of this, and the fact the center Travis Zajac is due to play his first game in the coming days after missing several months with a torn pectoral muscle, has led to optimism. The GM isn't trying to dump water on that. Why not feel good about the Devils?

"It's not just about last week. It's about where we're going to be in six months, two years, that type of thing," Shero said. "But you have to start building somewhere, and a couple months ago, I thought this was starting to turn on and off the ice. It's nice to have a record like this to prove that."

That record is above and beyond what anyone could have expected. Will it take 30 games for people to truly buy into this team? Fifty? Eighty-two? I'm with the GM on this: What you're seeing now is the real deal.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.