The New Jersey Devils have had a relatively quiet summer. Their biggest change was letting their previous franchise goaltender walk in favor of a guy who might become their next one. At least, that's what they're banking on.

They've added minimally to the lineup from last season. Mike Cammalleri is a second-line difference maker. Maybe Martin Havlat works out on his cheapo deal. Everyone else, though, is pretty much exactly the same from a team that missed the playoffs by five points last season, and yet it's unlikely that anyone is going to take as big a step forward next season as the Devils.

The first reason for this is that they probably can't continue to miss the playoffs despite being a world-beating possession team. They've finished outside the top eight in the East the last two seasons despite the fact that their possession numbers are tied for second in the league over those 130 games, behind only Los Angeles, and tied with Chicago. Teams simply do not miss the playoffs putting up numbers like that, and yet New Jersey has done it twice.

The reason for this is that they've been more than a little victimized by a combination of factors: The team's inability to score on the voluminous chances it gets (its 6.83 even-strength shooting percentage is 28th in the league during that time, ahead of Florida and Buffalo).

Beyond that is the team's well-publicized difficulties with the shootout over the last two seasons as well. The Devils were involved with 13 shootouts last year and won none of them, in large part because they scored just four times on 45 shots. That follows a year in which they won two of nine, scoring six times out of 29. Their total shootout winning percentage (.091) is dead last in the league by 12 percentage points.

The Devils' combined total of 10 goals on 74 shootout attempts the last two years has cost them significantly; the league average for shooting percentage is 33.01 percent, or one goal every three tries or so. That's right in line with all-time league average as well. New Jersey was slightly more than one-third of that (13.5 percent). Despite being 12th in the league in attempts, they were 29th in goals, ahead of only Carolina, which took 54 fewer attempts.

Adding Cammalleri, a career 27 percent shootout man (not great but certainly better than what they've got) helps. Maybe even Havlat (16.7 percent career) gives the team an additional edge here. Scoring even three or four shootout goals between them might be enough to get this team pretty far.

It is, however, not really all that reasonable to think the team won't bounce back overall. You can't last that long, in the shootout or the course of regular play, expect things to continue going that poorly forever. It would be interesting to see if the Devils were doing anything in their systems to drag down their even-strength shooting percentage. In much the same way the Kings — who were only one spot ahead of the Devils in terms of even-strength shooting efficiency — can succeed despite not scoring on a high percentage of their shots, the Devils should be able to as well, just because of the volume they produce.

But over the last two seasons, it's pretty clear that offense alone means New Jersey would be leaving a lot of points left on the table, even if their goaltending was good.

The problem is that it was not. Pete DeBoer — or, probably more accurately, Lou Lamoriello — continued to let Martin Brodeur be the goaltender for years after he was no longer effective. Only the Islanders, Panthers, and Flames have gotten worse goaltending the last two seasons than the Devils' .913 even-strength save percentage. That came mostly from Brodeur, but also Schneider (.924 in just 45 games) and the disastrous end to Johan Hedberg's career (.883 in 19 games).

As with the offensive problems, the Devils' shootout woes at the other end of the ice were well-known, too. Their .686 save percentage the last two seasons was, like their shooting percentage, dead last in the league.

There's a lot less to examine here, of course. It's pretty obvious from last year's stats — and “the eye test” — alone that this is a “Marty Brodeur Is 41 Years Old” problem, and not a team problem. Behind the exact same team, Schneider's save percentage was 20 points better.

Story continues