Sometimes, goalies win the games.
Per Natural Stat Trick, Jacob Markstrom only faced 1.49 expected goals, while Thatcher Demko faced 2.75. Markstrom allowed two, and Demko allowed one. Breaking it down even further, Jacob Markstrom made three saves on four high-danger shots, only facing two medium-danger shots. The goal by Buium, off of Brenden Dillon’s skate, was counted as a low-danger shot. Demko, by comparison, stopped all five high-danger shots on goal by the Devils, while he stopped seven of eight
medium-danger shots. Also from Natural Stat Trick, this is the heat map from the game. Look at how weak the Vancouver offense was at even generating shots:
You cannot make it up, and you cannot make excuses for it. The goaltender is paid to do exactly one thing: stop the puck from going into the net. Jake Allen held up his end of the bargain yesterday, stopping 30 of 31. Markstrom finally had another game where he allowed fewer than three goals, but he did so on an afternoon where he only faced 15 shots. Out of 16 starts, this was just the second time Markstrom allowed under three goals, and he still managed to lower his season save percentage.
Issue One: Rebound Control — Does Rogalski Teach It?
Let’s take a look at the firs t goal, allowed by Markstrom at the end of the first minute of the game. This goal, scored by Jake DeBrusk, came after Conor Garland called a slashing penalty on Dougie Hamilton. Hamilton came down hard on his stick, yes, but Garland simply raised one arm, stopped playing the puck, and then dropped his stick entirely when he thought the officials were not going to call a penalty. The Devils had touched it two or three times before the arm even went up. I get it when the officials miss a dangerous hitting penalty, like boarding, but rewarding what could have easily been called an embellishment to start the game was rather annoying. That aside, here is the goal against:
I will say that the defensive coverage from Brenden Dillon needs to be a lot better here. Despite being right in the passing lane, Garland is able to beat Dillon easily to set DeBrusk up at the net. DeBrusk turns to the net, bouncing one shot right off of Markstrom and back to himself. But while Thatcher Demko dealt with similar chances on the other end, staying sealed to the post, Markstrom gave up his entire glove side after the initial shot, sliding his left skate ENTIRELY away from the post.
This is not a washed-up, no reaction time type of misplay. This is a Jacob Markstrom currently has zero positioning skills as a goaltender kind of misplay. Look below at where Markstrom starts this goal against, and where he ends up.
Just like it was deflating for Markstrom to give up three poor goals to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, his first period performance clearly zapped the Devils from even engaging in offensive play until they went on the power play at the end of the period. With a chance to beat up on the worst team in the league, Markstrom could not even stay glued to his post, with Luke Hughes already at the side of the net, ready if DeBrusk tried to take it to his stick side. So, as Markstrom unnecessarily flops around, DeBrusk gets an easy net.
Issue Two: Special Teams
The second goal against for Markstrom falls more into the unfortunate category, but it is still maddening to watch him let what should be non-threatening shot attempts past him. This is not even a shot by Zeev Buium: it’s a centering pass, that was about to miss its mark and go several feet wide of goal and into the corner. Brenden Dillon CANNOT touch this with his stick, as this might be the worst own goal by a New Jersey Devil (yes, including every one by Damon Severson) that I have seen in the last ten years.
I mean, what is Dillon even thinking, sticking his right arm out like that at the puck? There is nobody behind him. If that puck goes to the boards, Dillon could have been first to the puck along the wall, anyway. And even if he wasn’t first to the puck, anything is better than deflecting the puck from wide back at the net in the defensive zone.
This goal against put the Devils to 0-for-2 on the penalty kill at this point of the game, despite Vancouver having just traded Quinn Hughes, who, as I mentioned this morning, had assisted on half of the Canucks’ power play goals and had points on 12 of 20 team goals this season. It would almost be forgivable if the Devils showed any indication that they were capable of scoring on the power play. They had an extended five-on-three chance in the first period, getting just under three minutes of consecutive power play time. Even in the five-on-three, the Canucks were able to get the puck out of their defensive zone multiple times.
Did I mention that the Canucks had the fourth-worst penalty kill in hockey coming into this game? The Devils had some incredibly weak power plays today, and it feels like Sheldon Keefe and Jeremy Colliton should have to answer why Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Stefan Noesen, Dawson Mercer, Dougie Hamilton, and Luke Hughes are not enough personnel to run a threatening top unit. These are power plays. You do not need an Alex Ovechkin to be effective. Are shots getting through to the net? Is there traffic in front? Can they get to rebounds?
For all of the time the Devils waste passing the puck back to each other at the point, and for all the time they waste in transition dropping passes 30, 40, or 50 feet back, they just give opposing goalies as easy of a two minutes as they can dream of. Everyone knows it. Nico Hischier knows it, just like Brenden Dillon knows the penalty kill is a serious problem right now.
Issue Three: Lots of Control at 5v5, Little Finish
The top line really controlled play for the New Jersey Devils today at even strength. In 13:58 together, the Bratt-Hischier-Mercer line generated 21 shot attempts and nine shots on goal, while only allowing four attempts and two shots on goal against. Hischier, Mercer, and Bratt finished with team-leading expected goals rates at five-on-five, with Nico at 87.22% and Bratt and 88.24%. Together, they generated 12 of the team’s 16 scoring chances at five-on-five.
In a short spell with Glendening on the ice with Bratt and Mercer, before Nico could get on the ice, Bratt let back a great little drop pass to Luke Hughes, creating the only goal for the Devils.
This rip of a shot by Luke Hughes breathed life into the Devils, but all of that control led to nothing else. Including the time they spent with the empty net, that top line generated over 1.3 expected goals alone at even strength, while the rest of the forwards generated 1.45 expected goals in all situations. On a pure hockey level, I did enjoy watching the way Luke Hughes played with them. When Hughes was on the ice with Hischier (9:58 at five-on-five), The Devils controlled shot attempts at a 17-1 rate, with the Devils outshooting Vancouver 7-0. By comparison, when Hischier played with Hamilton (7:42), the Devils only had two shots on goal.
Luke Hughes was great in the offensive zone today, and he had strong defensive numbers at five-on-five as well, with the Canucks only getting two shots on goal against him. Does he still need to be killing penalties with Brenden Dillon, though? Colton White had an excellent minute and a half on the kill against Anaheim, but got exactly zero seconds of usage there today. Of course, the Hughes-Dillon penalty killing pairing was on the ice for both goals against, though I would not blame Luke for either. 99.9% of the individual blame lies on Dillon and Markstrom, there.
Obviously, players like Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt have to start scoring goals again. Nico got off to a hot start in the first several games after Jack Hughes got hurt, but he has not had as much success at getting to the front of the net with Jesper Bratt on his line over the last few games. Beyond them, though, the rest of the team needs more consistency. Cody Glass had a great game yesterday, but had the worst run of play of any Devil today. Stefan Noesen scored yesterday, but took a bad penalty today. Juho Lammikko was on point yesterday, but was playing more reserved today.
Final Thoughts
I reject the notion that unnecessary penalties killed the Devils today. Their penalty kill and Jacob Markstrom put those two on the board for Vancouver. If Markstrom played a positionally sound game, DeBrusk could have shot that puck five times without scoring. If Brenden Dillon played well on the penalty kill today, the pass to DeBrusk never would have made it there — or he at least could have not scored a goal for Zeev Buium with a one-handed deflection.
Penalties happen. Every game, NHL teams should expect to have to kill two, three, or four penalties. It’s not like Jacob Markstrom faced an onslaught of five or six penalty kills. But what’s making the difference here? Look at how the Devils’ goalies and Thatcher Demko have performed on the penalty kill this season:
- Jake Allen: 4 goals against on 59 shots (.932 SV%)
- Jacob Markstrom: 18 goals against on 77 shots (.766 SV%)
- Thatcher Demko: 9 goals against on 49 shots (.816 SV%)
The only reason our penalty kill looked good for the first month and a half of the season, aside from Brett Pesce’s then-availability, was the fact that Jake Allen was making almost every save asked of him. Once Jacob Markstrom started taking over the net, the penalty kill fell apart. So, is it really because of Pesce? It’s not like Allen has fallen victim to countless PPGAs without him in the lineup. On the other side, Demko has not been outstanding for the Canucks, but he’s not at a critically low, unplayable level like Markstrom.
Tom Fitzgerald needs to do something. He should send Calen Addison, his extra defenseman, down if Simon Nemec is not hurt enough to warrant an IR stint. If Nemec is that hurt, what are they waiting for? It is past time to call Nico Daws up and relegate Jacob Markstrom to the press box for the time being. He has an .874 save percentage in 17 appearances and 16 starts. This is a level of bad that Markstrom has not shown since he became a full-time NHLer in 2015, and continual reps is simply not doing anything for him in terms of getting his game back on track.
The team might not be able to send him down to Utica, but Fitzgerald cannot let him continue to start games. He’s going to have to figure it out in practice and off the ice.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of the game this afternoon? Were you surprised at all by the loss? Why do you think nobody on this team can finish? Is it time to shut Jacob Markstrom down? How long can this team continue to spiral before something happens? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.
