Familiar Flaw Rearing Its Ugly Head In Devils Slump
Can Someone Give These Forwards Help With Lifts?
No one expected the Devils, a team that has lived in the vicinity of the Eastern Conference’s basement for most of the past decade, to maintain their torrid pace that saw them win 21 of their first 26 games. There was, however, hope that the Achilles Heel that had doomed so many of those seasons had been repaired.
For all the analysis one can bring to the table about a hockey team’s effectiveness, simple goaltending is often an overriding factor when it comes to explaining results. A hot goalie can undo a ton of mistakes by the skaters in front of him, and vice versa, a porous one can tank games that should have gone in the win column.
The Devils have been on the latter end of the spectrum for over a decade—they’ve ranked in the lower half of the league’s save percentage category every season since the GOAT Martin Brodeur stood tall between the pipes in 2010. Last season was an epic disaster, with a deluge of injuries forcing New Jersey to use seven different netminders, resulting in a league-worst .886 team save percentage.
Devils General Manager Tom Fitzgerald made fixing the issue Priority No. 1 this offseason, trading for and extending former Washington netminder Vitek Vanecek. For 26 games, Fitzgerald was receiving congratulatory calls throughout mainstream and social media.
Through their 3-0 blanking of Chicago on December 6, Vanecek and Akira Schmid ranked 8th and 15th, respectively, in goals saved over average in all situations, per NaturalStatTrick.com. In the seven games he played before he got hurt, Mackenzie Blackwood was ranked 47th among 70 NHL goalies with at least 250 minutes in the category—by no means outstanding, but a major leap from his 9th-worst showing last season.
To say that New Jersey’s goalies have regressed to the mean since would be sugarcoating things. All three netminders are in negative territory in GSAA, with Schmid’s minus-0.21 in three games only good enough for 31st place among the 56 goalies with at least 100 minutes played. Coming down to Earth the most has been Vanecek, whose minus-5.37 GSAA is better than just three other qualifying goalies in this span.
It’s no wonder the Devils have gone 1-6-1 over the last three weeks with a rematch against league-leading Boston on tap for their first game after the Christmas break on Wednesday. Though they haven’t been as dominant in the NST puck possession metrics in this stretch as they were when they were rampaging through teams with gaudy shot, scoring chances, and expected differentials, they’re still in the top 10 in most categories, including eighth in expected goals for percentage. By all rights, the Devils should have won at least a couple of those games where they tilted the ice in their favor.
You can make a case for poor puck luck (see below) in that New Jersey’s forwards aren’t burying their golden opportunities at the same rate as earlier in the year, but it’s also crystal clear that the team is giving up way too much, going from third in the league in goals against per game (2.56) over their first 26 games to 25th (3.75) in their last eight games.
That negative transformation falls on their goalies. There haven’t been a bunch of blooper-reel gaffes in this slump, but there were plenty of goals against they’d want back, whether it was due to terrible positioning or rebound control. It would be helpful, especially with two top defensemen in John Marino and Ryan Graves out of the lineup on “week-to-week” timelines, according to Head Coach Lindy Ruff, if the goalies could be better at smothering loose pucks in front.
The bottom line is that the Devils need Vanecek and Blackwood to step up and act like competent NHL goalies if they wish to avoid a historic collapse down the standings. The cushion from their early run is almost used up, with New Jersey a mere six points from falling out of a playoff seed. All their good work in improving their five-on-five and special teams play could easily end up being for naught.
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I don’t know how many times every Devils game I shout at my screen, “Can someone just lift the g-d puck?”
Not only has New Jersey dropped like a stone in their goaltending numbers, their shooting percentage went from a third-best 9.5% through December 6 to a lowly 27th-place 5.7% since.
The Devils have certainly seen better goalies as the schedule stiffened this month, and their early success has meant that opponents are no longer using their games as opportunities for backups. However, there is more to New Jersey’s goal scoring slump than the “puck luck” excuse.
After so many missed chances, you have to start pointing the finger at the players. Perhaps no one on the Devils is more emblematic of their finishing touch problems than Erik Haula, who was acquired in an offseason trade with Boston for the underperforming Pavel Zacha. An 18-goal scorer last season, Haula has potted all of two pucks this season despite playing just under 300 minutes with the brilliant Jack Hughes in all situations
It's not like Haula hasn’t had his fair share of opportunities—he is seventh on the team in individual high danger scoring chances for, per NST. He’ll get to the right spots with inside position and then shove the puck into the opposing goalie’s body, or worse, miss the net entirely.
Haula is surely not the sole culprit—captain Nico Hischier’s production has dried up during this slump. Whereas his individual expected goals for matched his 11-goal total through 26 games, he has since converted just two of his team-high 16 high danger scoring chances since.
I’m not a hockey coach, but I’d hope Ruff would put the forwards through heavy drills to emphasize the art of lifting pucks over sprawled goalies. I know it’s easier said than done, but too often a Devils player thought he had an open net and casually slid the puck along the ice, only to see the goalie slide across to deny the opportunity with his pad.
To his credit, Ruff hasn’t excused the goal scoring dropoff, properly chalking it up to poor execution. Hopefully, he can help his players with their lifts.