The New Jersey Devils’ season is probably already over. They are convincingly the second-worst team in the league in the standings, marginally ahead of the New York Islanders. Even if they turned things around, the Devils would still easily be the most disappointing team this season. They can’t win at home. They can’t win on the road. They can’t score goals at all. General Manager Lou Lamoriello put all of his eggs into one basket this past summer, and it seems he may have dropped the basket to the floor.

The Devils could win two out of every three games they have left this season and still be hard-pressed to make the playoffs, especially with the NHL’s overtime point structure. Two out of three wins in their final 53 games will net them a total of 88 points. Last season, the Canadiens and Flyers got the final two playoffs spots with 88 points in a season where most agree that the bar was set a little low.

With no salary cap space available to them, at what point do the Devils admit defeat and become sellers? The problem is that many of the highest paid players also have no-trade clauses in their deals, which makes it even harder for Lamoriello to put something together to free up some space. They’ve already had to play with a short bench a few times this season because they had no room to promote any players to replace injured ones.

How did this happen? The Devils have traditionally been one of the league’s strongest teams year after year; they finished first in their division in nine of the last 13 seasons, but this year they’ll be battling the Islanders for last place overall. Lamoriello has some work to do, and he knows he’ll have to perform a miracle to make improve this team, but it can be done. Until then though, expect a lot of long nights in the Prudential Center.