For all intents and purposes, the New Jersey Devils’ season was over before they traveled west to take on the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night. But after just five games, they were in desperate need of some positive feelings for a change.
After a great shutout performance from Jacob Markstrom (25/26 saves, .962%), they finally returned to the win column with a 3-1 win.
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Luke Hughes’ return to the lineup
After being out of action for 40 days due to injury, Devils’ defenseman Luke Hughes returned to the lineup tonight. While it’s typical for players who miss so much time to start slowly, the opposite was the case for Luke.
His 18:13 of 5v5 time led the entire team – and they were dominant when he was there. With him on the ice, the Devils led in scoring chances (15-5), high danger chances (4-2) and shot attempts (21-13). (via Natural statistical trick) Luke also earned a point and assisted on Timo Meier’s goal in the second period.
Along the way, we’ve seen that Luke has the raw talent to be one of the better attacking defenders in the league. While he didn’t do that rather Putting it all together, stringing together more performances like tonight would be a good start as the season draws to a close.
Power play finally strikes
Before some skating magic from Jack Hughes led to a power play goal from Dougie Hamilton, the Devils’ power play was 0 for their last 19. Needless to say, this was a huge factor in their five-game skid.
Digging deeper into this season’s power play results, they have scored 30 goals out of 43 expected goals. While that suggests the Devils’ power play should have scored 43% more this season, there’s reason to be happy if you’re a glass-half-full type:
Adjusted per 60 minutes, the Devils’ 9.91 expected goals (xGF/60) on the man advantage is the fifth-best figure in the entire league. Their 33.6 high danger chances per 60 (HDCF/60) ranks fourth in the NHL.
However, as with 5v5, finishing was a major problem. For every 33.6 HD chances, they have scored only 3.29. That’s less than one goal in every ten high-risk chances, while the average team scores about one in six. That’s ~40% more creation (on average) that the Devils needed to capitalize.
While it’s impossible to say how much of that luck is a lack of finishing talent versus bad luck, they at least deserve the benefit of the doubt (as opposed to 5v5) considering they finished third in the NHL last season (28.2%) with similar personnel. This season they click on only 20.3% (15th).
Maybe tonight signals an upward trend/better ending luck on the power play.
Much better defensive effort
Before the Olympic break, it seemed like the defense was making big strides; from January 19 until the break, their 2.19 expected goals against per 60 (xGA/60) at 5v5 was the sixth-best mark in the league.
But they emerged from the break with their fourth and third worst defensive performances of the calendar year respectively. It was imperative that they get back on track.
Johnathan Kovacevic was ultimately the odd man out, and two of the Devils’ defensive duos (Brett Pesce/L. Hughes and Brenden Dillon/Simon Nemec) finished with an expected goal share above 80% (via Geldpuck). That is completely dominant.
Their 1.64 xGA/60 tonight was (by far) their best performance since the Olympics, and 4th best of the calendar year. And we can talk about underlying numbers until we’re blue in the face, but most importantly, they only allowed one goal and won the game.
While the defense has made his job much easier than on recent occasions, props Markstrom for making the necessary stops; he stopped +0.71 goals above expectations.
Come on
The Devils – now 29-29-2 – will return home to take on the Florida Panthers on Tuesday (7:00 PM EST).
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