Devils’ Surprises At The Quarter Pole
Thanks to an early start to their 2024-25 season in Prague, the Devils reached the quarter pole faster than any other NHL team. Given the density of their schedule, their 12-7-2 mark can be labeled as something more than satisfactory, though with plenty of room for improvement. New Jersey is solidly in an Eastern Conference Wild Card slot based on points percentage and should remain there on Thanksgiving, a good harbinger for playoff qualification based on recent history.
That’s pretty much how most pundits envisioned this season would go for this up-and-coming franchise that has qualified for the postseason just twice in the last 12 years. It’s loaded with high-end talent, but with a new coach, new depth players, and new goalies, hiccups were expected.
How they’ve gotten to this point on the plus side of real .500, however, caught many folks by surprise:
Good surprises:
Johnathan Kovacevic
Traded to New Jersey from Montreal over the summer under the assumption he was destined to be their seventh defenseman, Kovacevic’s play quickly warranted first-pair minutes versus the opponents’ top guns. His NaturalStatTrick.com advanced possession metrics have been excellent and the actual results—he’s tied for 10th in the league with a plus-13—are even better. Kovacevic isn’t going to lead many end-to-end rushes (he somehow registered five points in the Devils’ first six games, but just one assist since) or pound guys through the boards, but he has been incredibly effective at the simple things like ending plays and getting pucks out of the defensive end, especially on the penalty kill. Most impressive is that he’s been able to resurrect partner Jonas Siegenthaler, whose inconsistencies last season had to have management jittery about the three more seasons on his contract. The Kovacevic/Siegenthaler pair has posted the eighth-best goals for percentage at even strength among the 81 duos in the league with at least 100 minutes on ice together.
Stefan Noesen
Who had Noesen, brought in during the free agency period to fill a hard-working bottom six forward role, placing fourth among the Devils point producers after 21 games? I just posted how instrumental Noesen has been on the power play (Noesen Makes His Presence Felt On Devils’ Power Play) with his net front presence and puck retrievals, but giving the team over .5 points per game at five-on-five, a barrier he had never broken in his previous 10 NHL seasons at all strengths, has been a welcome boon. In advance of the just-completed Florida trip, Head Coach Sheldon Keefe moved Noesen up to the top line with Nico Hischier and Timo Meier; the trio recorded a 68.16% expected goals for percentage over the three games at five-on-five.
Jake Allen
Typically, Devils goaltending goes on the other disappointing half of these posts. Sure, there have been a few woof outings between veterans Jacob Markstrom and Allen over the first 21 games, but any year where this team is over a .900 save percentage (at .910, they rank 10th in the league) is unequivocally acceptable. Allen has only gotten a third of the starts, but he’s been exceptional in all but two of them. Take away the Tampa Bay outing on October 22 where Keefe refused to pull him during an eight-goal barrage and he’d be at a 1.33 goals against average and a save percentage of .948 with two shutouts. Even with that horrid night, he ranks 17th among the NHL’s 57 goalies who played at least four games in goals saved above average and eighth in high danger save percentage, per NST. Those were the two main areas where Devils General Manager Tom Fitzgerald knew he had to prioritize this summer in order for this team to rejoin the ranks of playoff contenders.
Bad surprises
Brenden Dillon
Last season in Winnipeg, the stay-at-home defenseman was on the ice for 42 goals against in about 1,200 five-on-five minutes, per NST. The Devils signed him as a free agent this summer to a 3-year deal at a sizable $4 million AAV and has since seen him on the ice for half those goals allowed already, more than all but six other players in the league, in about a quarter of last season’s ice time. Dillon’s main partner Dougie Hamilton shares a good chunk of the blame for the deluge, as he has been caught flat-footed several times on plays that ended with the puck in the Devils’ net. But Hamilton was always expected to be the high-risk player whose offensive contributions more than offset his defensive liabilities. That’s why he needed to be paired with someone who could cover for him. That was supposed to be Dillon, only he’s been plagued by gaffes galore with puck management in his own end. Whereas I lauded Kovacevic above for his ability to get pucks out, seeing Dillon with it on his stick brings shudders to Devils fans. Who knows where it will land next? (Note: Never trust NHL.com giveaway/takeaway stats). I will credit Dillon for putting his body on the line—he leads the team in blocked shots and is tied with Noesen for second in hits. His fight with Florida’s Jonah Gadjovich on November 12 where he took something like 37 punches is generally cited as the catalyst for New Jersey’s two-game sweep over the defending Stanley Cup champions. I just expected Dillon to be more helpful in the goals against department.
The fourth line
Injuries to Nathan Bastian (jaw) and Curtis Lazar (knee) decimated the Devils’ fourth line, which wasn’t all that great (outscored 4-1 at five-on-five, per NST) during their ten healthy games together. But since Kurtis McDermid and Justin Dowling were inserted into the lineup, it’s been scary. Those two have the lowest expected goals for percentage among the team’s forwards. By a lot. On many nights it’s been so bad that Keefe has had to roll with three lines, overtaxing his best players like captain Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes as the games piled up in October and November. Both rank in the top 13 for centers in time on ice per game. That’s very unusual—Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at least play together a ton while Hughes and Hischier have earned about 30 shared even strength minutes, per NST. The hope is that either Nolan Foote or Shane Bowers, who were called up from AHL Utica on Monday, can provide a little bit more puck possession going forward on the fourth line, starting with Thursday’s showdown with Carolina. I know many fans love the goonish MacDermid and point to the Devils’ 7-2-1 record with him in the lineup as “the protector”, but his five minutes per game wasn’t why they were winning. To the contrary, the Devils were lucky those shifts weren’t so costly.