Devils’ Star Shine Brightest In Big Win Over Canes, But It’s Still The Goaltending, Stupid
In the Devils’ biggest game of their season to date, their stars shone brightest, with Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt combining for all three goals in Sunday night’s 3-0 victory over Carolina. Both clubs now share first place in the Metropolitan Division with 94 points, though the Hurricanes own a game in hand.
While it’s important for a team’s best players to be at their best in games of greater magnitude, what’s often forgotten is a play on an axiom used by countless political commentators. Instead of, “It’s the economy, stupid,”, in the NHL, it’s adjusted to. “It’s the goaltending, stupid.”
Hughes and Bratt were the first two stars of the game as voted by the media in attendance, with Devils goalie Vitek Vanecek earning third star honors. It should have been reversed, because if not for Vanecek’s impeccable performance in New Jersey’s net, stopping all 32 Carolina shots, the outcome clearly could have gone another way.
That’s just how most games play out. Prior to the contest at the raucous Rock, Devils Head Coach Lindy Ruff was asked about how his club has managed to rocket from last season’s desultory standing into the league’s third-best team in 2022-23. Ruff went through everything, from the development of his club’s young stars to the veteran additions that bolstered his forwards and defense corps.
Ruff said he could go on for ten minutes, but it was notable that the first item on his list focused on his goaltending. He only mentioned health, though Jonathan Bernier, who signed a 2-year, $8.25 million contract in the summer of 2021, has been on long-term injured reserve all season and presumed 1-B goalie Mackenzie Blackwood has been in-and-out of the lineup all season with various ailments that have limited him to 16 starts.
Granted, this hasn’t been like last season’s whirlwind, which saw the Devils utilize an unheard of seven different goalies over 82 games. However, the main difference this season has been ability, not just availability. There were games last season where the Devils looked beaten the second they hit the ice due to a lack of trust in whoever was tending goal.
Credit Vanecek, who was acquired and extended last offseason in a trade with Washington, for reversing the narrative. Though previously cast as nothing more than a league-average goalie, he has stepped up his game immensely this season, posting career-best goals against average and save percentage numbers.
A couple of lulls in the season have negatively impacted his advanced metrics—he ranks 24th among the 71 goalies who have played at least 10 games in goals saved above average and 49th in high danger save percentage, per NaturalStatTrick.com. However, that’s going to happen given how he’s been used. For while Blackwood and rookie Akira Schmid have looked better on paper, Vanecek has been tasked for all but a select few of the toughest assignments.
That includes three of the four games versus the Hurricanes, who may have been without All-Star wing Andrei Svechnikov on Sunday but are still deep and dynamic. They throw pucks at the net from all angles, with the understanding that some of them will deflect en route into the net.
Fortunately, Vanecek was on his game, moving from side-to-side and tracking pucks well. He had no problems getting over to stop east-west passes on the few two-on-ones the Devils allowed and he absolutely stoned Canes leading goal scorer Sebastian Aho on a couple of wide open looks from the slot.
Contrast that with the substandard performance from Carolina goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, who’s gaping five hole proved to be too inviting to Hughes and Bratt on New Jersey’s two first period goals. Then 4:31 into the second period, Kochetkov mishandled the puck behind his net, gifting it to Hughes. As Kochetkov stumbled back towards the goal, Hughes fed the puck across the crease to Bratt, who punched it home. I’m guessing that Carolina’s 4-0 loss to Vegas on Saturday had something to do with why they didn’t subsequently pull Kochetkov in favor of Frederik Andersen, but with Vanecek stopping everything sent his way, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Sunday marked Vanecek’s 42nd outing of the season. matching his career high set last season with Washington. He also has only three playoff games under his belt. That means that the Devils have to be on high alert in case they see signs of something more than temporary slippage in his game and be prepared to have an alternate at the ready. When asked whether that would be Blackwood or Schmid, Ruff said he would “cross that bridge when (he) gets to it.”
Again, remember that though Schmid may be 8-4-1 this season, he has yet to beat a team that currently holds a playoff seed. Blackwood’s acrobatics may be more in tune with high-stakes postseason contests, but his game has been marked by inconsistency, often due to all his injury woes.
For the Devils to be more than regular season wonders, they’re going to need elite goaltending as much as, if not more than, they’ll need big-time production from their stars.