Devils Playoff Preview Part II: The Less Obvious Keys
When analyzing whether the Devils can prevail over the favored Hurricanes in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinals series commencing on Sunday afternoon, the talking points begin with special teams and goaltending.
New Jersey’s power play (third-best conversion rate in the league during the regular season) and penalty kill units (second-ranked) have been consistently terrific all season, even after injuries took away All-Star center Jack Hughes and defenseman Dougie Hamilton. The goaltending has been less so, but Jacob Markstrom has shown pockets of Herculean efforts to keep the Devils in games they were outplayed.
Of course, goaltending and special teams are major keys in every NHL series, not just this one. Do you think St. Louis has any chance against President’s Trophy winning Winnipeg if goalie Jordan Binnington is outperformed by his counterpart Connor Hellebuyck?
But what if the Devils and Hurricanes play these main areas to a virtual draw? What are the less talked about factors that could sway the series? Here are a few:
1) Giveaways
The old broadcasters’ joke is that calling hockey is the art of describing one continuous mistake. Pucks are routinely turned over to the other team, purposely or erroneously. NHL.com stats can be sketchy, to put it kindly, and its giveaway numbers are hardly credible. New Jersey is considered average in the rankings while Carolina coughed up the fourth-most pucks during the season. Take that with a grain of salt.
Some giveaways, however, are worse than others. Those that feed opponents’ rush chances can be game-changing. In this department, unfortunately, the Devils have been guilty of way too many egregious puck management decisions/executions that have directly led to extra goals against this season.
The mistakes have come from everywhere—defensemen making poor reads in zone exits and forwards playing with the puck just inside the offensive zone—and everyone. Think Timo Meier teeing up Islander forward Bo Horvat for the only goal last Sunday.
Carolina will be forechecking the Devils’ D like demons, especially during their home games. How will New Jersey handle it? Can they be structured and simple? Is one meaningless game enough to rid Hamilton of any rust? Will Luke Hughes take the next step in his development by bringing it every shift?
The last thing the Devils can afford is to offer gifts in the form of glorious scoring chances to a Canes squad that was dominant with leads during the regular season—20-4-2 after the first period and 37-1-3 when ahead after two.
2) Depth scoring
For all the Nico Hischier mentions when the league’s Selke Trophy is discussed, let’s not forget that, in Jack Hughes’ absence, the Devils require his extraordinary offensive production to compete at the highest levels. One would think that Carolina will match up Jordan Staal’s line against the Hischier/Jesper Bratt combo. Over the four regular season meetings that were split, Hischier’s line never scored during the 14:30 the two captains went head-to-head at five-on-five.
That puts the onus on New Jersey’s “other guys” besides Hischier. Bratt, and Meier to pick up the pace. Unfortunately, the Devils’ inability to roll four lines that are threatening has been a season-long concern. It’s the hockey equivalent of the old Milwaukee Braves pitching rotation credo: “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” Maybe “Hischier and Bratt and that’s that?”
Second line center Dawson Mercer in particular cannot have a quiet series or else it will be over quickly. Erik Haula had a fantastic playoff run two years ago after a similarly snakebitten regular season campaign—it would help the Devils immensely if he broke through again. Is “Playoff (Ondrej) Palat” still a thing?
If you want a real wild card, watch Daniel Sprong, the unheralded trade deadline pickup who plays with speed and a shot-first mentality. If he can figure out how to elevate some pucks on net, he might be good for a few goals that could potentially swing the series.
3) Faceoffs
Though it’s a more marginal facet of the game, the team that won the faceoff battle took three of the four meetings during the regular season, with New Jersey going 24-for-50 (48%) in the one outlier game they won on November 21. New Jersey dominated the circle (30-for-51) during their 4-2 victory on December 27 but then lost 36-of-59 draws the next night in the 5-2 defeat on the home-and-home.
This series features two of the league’s best in Hischier and Staal, but heads up when Carolina’s Sebastian Aho is in the offensive zone circle—he won 58.7% of those draws, the tenth-best mark in the league among the 53 centermen who took 1,000 faceoffs this season (Hischier was first in offensive zone winning percentage at 61.2%). I can recall a few past instances where an Aho win at the dot set the stage for a Canes goal against the Devils.
Though the odds favor Carolina to run away with the series, most playoff games are tightly contested. It can be these types of little things that yield the extra puck possession that can decide an individual game.