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The New Jersey Devils have problems. Big problems.
They just put the finishing touches on a disastrous seven-game road trip in which they accumulated two points and were out-scored by *checks notes* 17 goals.
Sure, the Devils faced a few excellent teams like Tampa Bay, Toronto, and Winnipeg. They also played consensus bottom feeders including Ottawa, New York (Islanders), and Detroit. To lose all those games is one thing. To get bombed almost every night is another.
Heading into the season,
I pegged Cory Schneider, secondary scoring, and team defense (that’s all?!?) as the biggest question marks surrounding the team. All have proven to be very problematic.
Through four appearances, Schneider owns a .849 save percentage and has stopped -5.15 goals above average, according to Hockey-Reference. The defense has not been great but his play has only made matters worse. To start like this following three consecutive seasons of declining numbers is not exactly encouraging to see.
Offensively, Ray Shero bet on young players/prospects like Pavel Zacha, Miles Wood, Jesper Bratt, and John Quenneville, among others, to further progress and solidify the team’s scoring depth. That hasn’t paid off.
While Zacha provided plus defense, he failed to record a point in 10 games prior to being sent to the AHL. Wood has contributed one goal in 15 games while moving up and down the lineup. Bratt is just now returning from a broken jaw. Quenneville went pointless in his five games with the team.
Add to that a slow start from Marcus Johansson and secondary scoring is unsurprisingly a massive issue. Beyond top liners, Travis Zajac is the only forward averaging more than .50 points per game. His production has been aided by an unsustainably high shooting percentage (28.6%) so regression is coming there, too. The Devils are getting almost nothing from forwards outside of the big three and now Nico Hischier may also be lost to injury. Not good.
On defense, the regular top-6 is made up entirely of returning players. They were surprisingly stingy to start the year but things have continually headed south since. On the year the Devils rank 22nd in Expected Goals Against/60 at 5v5 and they’re falling fast. That’s not good enough given a) the lack of offense and; b) Keith Kinkaid has easily been the team’s best goaltender and his numbers are still well below league average.
It is said teams are never as good as they seem when things are going great and never as bad as they seem when things go horribly wrong. This case is no different. Unfortunately, the happy medium likely still leaves the Devils outside of the playoff mix.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com, Corsica.Hockey and Hockey-Reference.com
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