I think most Devils fans recognize that he was disappointing this season prior to this injury and has been abysmal since. The injury is most certainly a factor - it doesn't completely excuse his poor play, but we also have no idea to what degree it impacts it or why NJ continues to play him when he doesn't seem to be helping the team.
I guess because I'm not willing to completely write him off for the duration of the contract or ship him off for Huberdeau or some other cap dump, I'm just making excuses for him though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm not sure exactly what NJ management saw in him as I rarely watched Timo with San Jose. He didn't exactly gel last season, but was most definitely one of their better players in the playoffs despite what the stats say. He had a slow start to the season, but again was a PPG player the 11 games prior to getting injured so he was at least on the right track, even if he was playing below expectations during that time.
We have a recent enough example with Dougie Hamilton of a player that really didn't look that good his first season with NJ (in part due to injuries) and then had a vastly improved 2nd season, to the point he was 6th in Norris voting. Of course that doesn't guarantee a thing for Meier, but excuse us if we're not ready to throw in the towel on this player just yet.