Last night, the big storyline coming into the game was about Connor Hellebuyck. After Sunday night’s shutout of the Toronto Maple Leafs on the second half of a back-to-back, the team announced that Hellebuyck would not be starting in his return to Winnipeg. This created a media frenzy in Canada, with some downright acting like vultures as the Devils chose to keep their goalie fresher for the upcoming divisional games against Washington. Had Hellebuyck started, he would have had to play three games on one
day of rest in a single week — and he hasn’t even been built up to his usual workload yet.
In a way, the energy that Devils skaters played with kind of proved the organization’s point last night.
This was their third game in four nights, and they came out of the gate pretty strong. Through the first period, they outshot Winnipeg, only falling down 2-0 because Jake Allen did not pick up a Dawson Mercer turnaround wrist shot from high in the zone on Winnipeg’s second shot of the game nearly eight minutes in. Later in the first, Brett Pesce and Dougie Hamilton took two careless penalties in short order, and those are just two players who can’t sit in the box at the same time. On the five-on-three, Cole Perfetti redirected a pass across past Jake Allen, who overplayed it a bit.
The Devils had early opportunities of their own. Neal Pionk started the game by sailing the puck over the glass, gifting the Devils a power play. What did they do with it? Nothing, of course. Gabriel Vilardi tripped Jack Hughes up from behind at the end of the period, too, and that power play looked much stronger, but not good enough to claw back.
In the second period, after the final few seconds of the power play expired, the Devils started flying at five-on-five. Pulling back to within one just over a minute into the period, Jack Hughes just missed Arseny Gritsyuk after a turnover by the Jets wtih a possibly superfluous pass, but the Devils stayed with the play. Gritsyuk stayed with it on the boards below the goal line, slipping a ridiculous pass back out to Jesper Bratt, who picked a spot below Nico Daws’s glove for a far-side goal.
Cody Glass, not even a minute later, deflected a Johnny Kovacevic blueline shot. Less than two minutes into the period, the Devils had tied the game, giving the team and fans hope that this would continue. But it did not. The Devils had a strong first half to this period, but slowed down immensely after Declan Chisholm took a hooking penalty just under nine minutes in. The Devils were able to kill that one off, but their chance generation at five-on-five seemed to slip after that.
The real blow came towards the end of the period. With the Hischier line out and looking strong, I had thought Timo Meier was about to draw a holding penalty, as Winnipeg was getting away with quite a lot of clutching and grabbing throughout the game. But then the camera panned back a bit, and the whistle blew, and Johnny Kovacevic was down on the ice after being interfered with by Tyrel Bauer. Bauer was given a two-minute minor on the play, but Kovacevic appeared to have a serious knee injury on the play. Kovacevic never returned to the game, which was not only unfortunate because he’s dealt with two knee surgeries in relatively recent history, but he was also the steadiest defensive presence in last night’s game for the Devils.
The Devils obviously did not score on the power play, because why would they? And in the third period, a bad situation took a worse turn. The Jets brutally outpossessed and outshot the New Jersey Devils. The forwards, perhaps starting to feel the effects of two games going a man down on their third game in four nights, started to skate like they were dragging sandbags around. The defensemen, meanwhile, started having visible trouble getting the puck out of the defensive zone every time Jake Allen made a save and left the puck for them to play.
Halfway through the period, Cody Glass was coming back to the bench during a poor change. Despite his literal leaping into the bench to avoid a bench minor penalty, Evan Rodrigues made the thoughtless play of trying to knock the puck down with a high stick in the neutral zone, and the Devils were called for too many men on the ice.
This was the killer penalty. The Devils started out well, but they started to overload far too heavily towards the end. Neal Pionk had the puck at the point, staring down three Devils in Cody Glass, Connor Brown, and Dougie Hamilton, who were in a tiny triangle with Brenden Dillon, taking away just a couple shooting lanes and maybe one passing lane. It was too easy for Winnipeg. Viggo Bjorck got the puck on the wall, moving it down low to Alex Iafallo, who turned a backhand pass out to the completely uncovered man — Dawson Mercer — for the game-winning goal. This play is a masterclass on how not to position on the penalty kill.
Connor Brown and Brenden Dillon are doubled up on the slot, allowing this play to go low, and Dougie Hamilton was too slow to shut that play down before it was made. Prior to the pass to Iafallo, he still had his stick positioned to block a pass through traffic from Bjorck to Mercer, but he has to realize that the puck is never getting there if Bjorck tries it. Since Dillon was playing like a ghost by the faceoff dot, the Devils’ only hope here was if Dougie Hamilton started playing right on Iafallo, forcing a shot through traffic from the wall. Since Dougie was still playing as if Brenden Dillon was going to be a physical defenseman, the Devils suffered the back-breaking goal. This is from the MSGSN feed last night in the above video, and you can see the Devils reduce themselves from a five-on-four to practically a five-on-two by tripling their coverage on the lane to Bjorck and leaving Dougie to cover any play to the net.
The Devils, completely gassed at the end of the third, had little hope to tie the game in an empty net situation. They were simply too slow. They turned the puck over multiple times. Viggo Bjorck had a chance to end it one time and just missed the net, but the Devils came back and coughed it up high in the offensive zone, and Kyle Connor wasn’t going to be caught up with as he iced the game at 4-2.
Rest Advantages and The Chance to Steal a Game
I doubly get why Jake Allen started this game after seeing the way the Devils skaters played: there are only two ways they could have come away with this one: either Jake Allen could have stolen a game, or special teams could have shown a little more competence. The Devils were playing their third game in four nights, with each game being on the road. The Jets were playing their third game in six nights, with each game being at home. So of course, I should have expected Winnipeg to have more energy last night, but I am still less than thrilled about it.
As far as former Devils go, they played pretty well. I think Nico Daws is lucky to some extent that the Devils forwards ran out of gas about 30-40 minutes into the game, and I cannot say that I think the Devils challenged him very much, but he more or less did his job. That is the kind of performance I would have been happy with from him about three weeks ago. But Dawson Mercer was Winnipeg’s best player on the ice last night. His performance on the penalty kill was impeccable, and he was probably the reason the game was tied in the first place through the first several minutes leading up to his ice-breaking goal. And while his game-winner didn’t really require a snipe, he was positioned perfectly to take advantage of a poor Devils penalty kill.
An Unplayable Kill
Currently, the New Jersey Devils are sitting at 18.03% on the penalty kill. That is pretty bad for this group, and it can certainly be improved on. But the penalty kill is killing penalties at a rate of 65.85%. That is unplayable. We are nearly a quarter of the way through the regular season, and the Devils are 2-3-0 with one regulation win in games where they take four or more minor penalties. When they only have to kill one penalty or zero, they are 8-0-0.
I suppose that is to be expected, but consider that the Devils outscored the Jets 2-1 at five-on-five. The only five-on-five goal Jake Allen allowed was one he probably should have had: a turnaround wrister from distance. Meanwhile, the penalty kill is operating at a rate only seen in the bogus COVID bubble season, when they were just a bit under 71% efficiency. That year aside, the Devils have not had a penalty kill percentage below 79% since the 1988-89 season, when they were at 75.4%.
Is this the early 1980s? Do the Devils not employ noted penalty killers Brett Pesce, Connor Brown, Nico Hischier, and other defensive players in Jonas Siegenthaler, Johnny Kovacevic, Evan Rodrigues, and Cody Glass? What exactly am I missing here?
Am I missing that the Devils let go of a defensive assistant in Ryan McGill, who coached the second-best penalty kill in the league in 2024-25, only to replace him with someone who has seen the team kill under 80% of penalties last year and now under 70% this season in Brad Shaw? I might be very happy with the way the Devils are playing defensively at five-on-five, but McGill was the defensive coach when the Devils were going on ridiculous streaks of holding teams to under 20 shots in Keefe’s first season with the team. At the very least, Shaw is certainly not showing me anything there that I don’t think any coach was doing before.
But on the penalty kill? His unit is utterly unplayable. Brenden Dillon is seeing power play goals scored against him at a rate of 25.46 per 60 minutes. Connor Brown: 22.61/60. Brett Pesce: 15.65/60. The only four players under 10 PPGA/60 PK minutes are a guy who isn’t on the team anymore (Dawson Mercer, 9.95/60), Nico Hischier (9.25), Jonas Siegenthaler (7.63), and Dougie Hamilton (6.52).
I don’t think this is a goalie problem. It just so happens that whenever Siegenthaler and Hamilton are not on the ice, preferably together, the penalty kill just goes to absolute hell. Brett Pesce is supposed to be one of the best killers in the league! So is Connor Brown! But Pesce has already been on the ice for three more power play goals against than last season in 62 fewer minutes, while he is only three goals against away from matching the entirety of his 2024-25 total in 127 fewer minutes. If Brad Shaw cannot get his house in order quickly, I just don’t know how long I can stand to watch a penalty kill succeed under 70%, or even under 75% of the time.
We can talk about Ted Donato’s power play, sure, and I will be mentioning some avenues of improving there later today. But their rate of success does not even rise halfway (literally) to the level of incompetence that the penalty kill has been at this season. Do you think the Devils can play like that in the playoffs? At worst, last night was an overtime game if the penalty kill is halfway decent.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of last night’s game? What kind of changes do you think the Devils need to make on special teams? What did you think of Jake Allen’s performance in goal? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for reading.
