After last night’s victory in Edmonton and the Devils pulling a rare feat in itself where they swept a back-t0-back, they currently sit in 6th place in the Metropolitan Division with a 26-22-2 record and 54
points. Technically, one could argue they are tied with Philadelphia and Washington, but the Flyers have two games in hand and the Capitals hold the regulation wins tiebreaker, so I consider that 6th place placement to be accurate.
Much has been written on this website about what this team isn’t. They’re not a true contender because they don’t do X, Y, and Z well. They’re not a true contender because they can’t beat Carolina. They’re not big enough, strong enough, fast enough, talented enough, or mentally tough enough. A lot of those critiques are valid complaints when it comes to this group.
But what is this team? What are they trying to be when they’re at their best?
The Devils Are a Team That Can’t Score
You can use whatever metric you so choose but the bottom line is this….the Devils simply aren’t good enough when it comes to putting the puck in the back of the net.
They’re 28th in goals scored, 29th in goals per game, 15th in power play percentage, and 32nd in shooting percentage. They’re 22nd in 5v5 expected goals for per 60 and 32nd in goals scored above expected. According to Moneypuck, they’re still 32nd in rebound goals despite being middle of the pack in rebound shots for.
I always like to say that your best players need to be your best players to ultimately raise the floor of the entire group. Unfortunately, the Devils best players haven’t been quite up to the task this season.
Jesper Bratt has 7 goals in his last 43 games. After scoring in his return from a hand injury, Jack Hughes has 0 goals in his last 14 games. Timo Meier has 5 goals in 22 games since Thanksgiving. Dougie Hamilton might have picked things up in terms of racking up assists, but he has 1 goal in his last 35 games. Even Nico Hischier, who leads the team in scoring, had a stretch where he basically went 0-for-most of the month of December.
Those are five of the highest paid players on the team. Those are the guys who are supposed to be driving the bus for the rest of the group. The fact that they’re not giving the Devils quite enough offensively is a big part of the reason why the Devils are where they are.
There has been a lot of piling on for guys like Ondrej Palat, Luke Glendening, and Juho Lammikko for not being very good. That’s fine, but they’re not the Devils best players (even though Palat is being paid like one). The Devils simply need more from their best players. All of them.
The Devils Do Defend. Sometimes.
Sheldon Keefe mentioned after the win last night that from a defensive checking standpoint, the first two periods against Edmonton was about as well as the Devils had played in a long time, and maybe all season.
I don’t necessarily disagree with that. The fact the Devils held the Oilers to ten measly shots through two periods is a testament to how they are capable of defending well.
That said, there’s that, and then there’s whatever the third period was last night when they were more or less holding on for dear life and asking their goaltender, in this case Jake Allen, to win the game for them.
The Devils are 9th in shots blocked at 5v5, which is all well and good in the sense that you want players who are willing to get into lanes and do what needs to be done to keep the other team off of the scoreboard. But it’s also bad in the sense that you do not want to be a team that is getting bombarded. You don’t want to turtle. You don’t want to get caved in. Especially when you’re 3rd in the league in high danger shots at 5v5 against like the Devils also are.
For as much criticism that Jacob Markstrom has taken this season, and rightfully so, the Devils could stand to make things easier for both him and Jake Allen. A good start would be more periods like the first two in Edmonton last night where they’re not allowing the opposition to do much of anything with the puck. That does start with a good forecheck.
Some might say that’s boring hockey, but the Devils could use a little more boring given their offensive struggles.
The Devils Do Have a Grittiness Aspect That I Appreciate
One of my guilty pleasures this season has been whenever the Devils post Sheldon Keefe giving the boys credit after a win on social media. It might be mostly cliche stuff and its not like the team is going to put stuff out there that they aren’t comfortable with the general public seeing, but when you get a chance to get a glimpse inside the room, it’s appreciated.
If there’s a common theme to those speeches, its usually how the team grinded, or battled through it, or whatever buzzword Keefe uses on any particular night.
I do appreciate that the Devils seem to have this quality. For all the talk about being able to play “playoff style” hockey, its something that you do need once you get there.
I simply wish the Devils didn’t need to grind as much as they apparently need to in the regular season.
Case in point, in the Devils last 13 wins, only three of those have been by multiple goals. The 5-0 win in Buffalo on the day after Thanksgiving, the 4-1 win vs. Anaheim, and the 5-2 win in Minnesota last week.
To borrow a gambling term, almost every Devils win is a “sweat” where its never easy. This goes back to what I said about their inability to score. Is it asking too much for this team to have a stretch where they win a bunch of games 4-1 and we’re not on the edge of our seats the entire time?
The Devils Have a Deceptively Good Penalty Kill With Brett Pesce Back
If one were to take a quick glance at the stats, they would just assume the Devils with their 20th ranked penalty kill at 78% is mediocre at best and teetering towards not being very good.
I dove into the numbers a bit a few weeks ago when I said I was cautiously optimistic about the Devils, but to briefly recap, the Devils were killing penalties at a 90% rate pre-Pesce injury and a 66.6% rate while he was out. Since Pesce returned on December 17th, the Devils have killed 30 of 36 penalties (83.3%).
It’s not outlandish to suggest the Devils might’ve had a top 5 penalty killing unit had Pesce never gotten hurt. But when the team goes 10-13-1 without him in the lineup, those goals they’re allowing on the penalty kill add up. Conversely, the Devils are 16-9-1 with Brett Pesce in the lineup.
I don’t want to overrate Pesce’s contributions but he’s clearly an important piece to what the Devils are trying to do, and they’re better with him than without him.
Final Thoughts
Fifty games in, I think what the Devils are trying to be is a team that wins because of their defense and goaltending. And they could actually potentially be dangerous if the guys who are being paid to puck in the net did their part and put the puck in the net.
I think you’re walking a tightrope trying to win in that manner.
For starters, it leaves little margin for error that you would have if the team was able to score goals more consistently. Yes, there will be playoff games where you need to win 2-1 but there’s plenty of playoff games where you need to be able to score four, five, even six goals consistently. It’s something all of the recent Cup champions from Florida to Vegas to Colorado to Tampa Bay have been able to do. They bludgeon teams in playoff games, and they do it consistently.
The Devils have scored five goals twice in a game since Thanksgiving….the aforementioned games in Buffalo and Minnesota.
Now, can the Devils get back to being that type of team? Perhaps. They showed an ability to score lots of goals during the 8 game win streak, and also defend. I don’t think that you necessarily just lose that ability overnight, although one might argue that they took advantage of some early season sleepwalking.
Maybe that’s the case, but now that we’re in the dog days of summer (or winter, whatever, you know what I’m trying to say), why can’t they get back to that?
Obviously, the Devils need more high end talent. Hopefully, Tom Fitzgerald finds a way to add some. But they also need the high end talent they have at home to start pulling their weight. Until they do, this feels like a fringe playoff team at best.
