{"id":323921,"date":"2025-12-01T10:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T10:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323921\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T10:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T10:55:13","slug":"devils-star-still-not-close-to-returning-coach-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323921\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils star still not close to returning, coach says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Devils<\/a> miss Brett Pesce<\/a>. They\u2019ve been a mess defensively since he suffered a hand injury on Oct. 26.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re staying afloat, no doubt, posting a 9-7-1 record since Pesce went down, despite suffering a laundry list of other injuries during that span (the Devils are third in man games lost to injury this season). <\/p>\n

HAVE YOU JOINED OUR YOUTUBE PAGE? DEVILS REPORTER RYAN NOVOZINSKY BREAKS DOWN EVERY GAME \u2014 WITH YOUR HELP<\/a><\/p>\n

But coach Sheldon Keefe<\/a> knows things could be way better.<\/p>\n

New Jersey\u2019s defensive struggles were on full display in their 5-3 loss to the Flyers on Saturday, during which the second pair of Luke Hughes<\/a> and Simon Nemec<\/a> posted arguably the worst statistical nights<\/a> of their young careers.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our Speaking of the Devils newsletter here<\/a>! Get 10 inside-Devils notes in your inbox each Monday at 10 a.m. ET!<\/p>\n

This raises the question: When the heck is Pesce coming back?! NJ Advance Media asked Keefe about this after Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting closer, yeah,\u201d Keefe said. \u201cI\u2019d still put him in the weeks department, though. He\u2019s been skating lots, so I think once his hand gets going and the strength gets there, I think it\u2019ll be pretty quick. He\u2019s not there yet. It\u2019s not in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pesce, 31, suffered the injury in a game against the Colorado Avalanche after he blocked a shot from defenseman Brent Burns. On Nov. 6th, Pesce was spotted on the MSG broadcast wearing a cast on his left hand.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how long it takes him to return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Devils miss Brett Pesce. They\u2019ve been a mess defensively since he suffered a hand injury on Oct.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-323921","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}