Inevitable Devils’ Slump Requires Some Tinkering By Ruff
Devils fans knew this was coming.
After winning 21 of their first 26 games, one of six NHL teams to ever accomplish that feat, New Jersey, the fifth-worst team in the league last season, was bound to take a stride backwards at some point. Their 4-1 loss to visiting Dallas on Tuesday night was their third in a row, with two in regulation.
Welcome to Stage 1 adversity, New Jersey.
When you’re winning games, there’s a tendency to ignore your flaws, and the Devils haven’t really played all that well for two weeks save for a 3-0 victory over lowly Chicago on December 6, going 2-2-2 in that span.
The Devils have been guilty of failures in closing out periods and blowing leads, starting with allowing Nashville’s tying goal with 10 seconds remaining before falling in overtime to begin the slump. After taking an early 1-0 lead against the Islanders last Friday, New Jersey fell asleep at the end of the first period and decided to give Anders Lee a free look from the slot that sent them to the locker room down, 2-1. The Devils also blew 2-0 and 3-1 leads to the Rangers on Monday before again losing in overtime.
Tuesday night’s demoralizing gaffe, which turned into Dallas’ game-winner, came with three seconds remaining in the second period when the Devils couldn’t clear the zone and then didn’t protect the net-front, leaving Dallas center Roope Hintz alone to bang home the rebound of a Miro Heiskanen shot that hit the post past New Jersey goalie Akira Schmid.
Fortunately, the Devils (21-6-2) built a pretty decent cushion with their sprint out of the gate to obviate the need to panic. They still lead the Metropolitan Division by six points over Carolina, who has a game in hand.
However, Devils Head Coach Lindy Ruff knows it’s time to tinker, and here are a few suggestions:
1) Free Hughes of Haula
I understand why Ruff likes having offseason trade acquisition Erik Haula on Jack Hughes’ line. Haula is ninth in the league in faceoff win percentage (300 draw minimum) whereas Hughes stinks at it, sporting a ghastly 32.8% win percentage. Haula also is better equipped to help end opponents’ plays in New Jersey’s zone—when Ruff rejiggered the lines in the third period to put Hughes between Jesper Bratt and Yegor Sharangovich, the team was out-attempted and outchanced by Dallas, per NaturalStatTrick.com. Not what you want with your top offensive performers on the ice.
Still, Haula is snakebit, with just one goal in over 230 minutes playing alongside one of the most gifted offensive creators in the game. Early in Tuesday’s scoreless second period, Haula had a golden opportunity to put New Jersey ahead with Dallas goalie Scott Wedgewood (one of my favorite former Devils) prone on the ice, but his shot hit Stars veteran defenseman Ryan Suter standing in the crease.
Haula gets several of these chances every night but hasn’t converted them. Enough is enough.
Maybe Ruff can’t combine Hughes and Bratt, two brilliant but small-ish skaters, on the same line, and breaking them up gives the team better balance across multiple units. However, Dawson Mercer can be a responsible defensive center and Sharangovich has proven his mettle in his own end with his penalty killing. That trio has already shared the ice for over 53 minutes at five-on-five this season and produced a 53.5% expected goals for percentage (and 3-2 actual goals advantage), per NST. Until Ondrej Palat returns from groin surgery, go with that and move Haula to Jesper Boqvist’s line, which has had Ruff deathly afraid that the Devils will be scored on.
2) One-timers on the power play
Ruff once mentioned that he prefers loading up his top power play unit with his most skilled players, even if they’re all similar in style. Hughes and Bratt can be electric, but good teams know how to erase those east-west passes across seams that once worked so wonderfully. Opponents can scheme against it because neither of the two Devils’ stars, nor bumper man Nico Hischier, boasts a lethal one-timer from distance. Hughes, who is usually stationed along the left wing boards, is enormously dynamic walking down from the point where he can shoot or pass, but, as a lefty, he isn’t a big threat to score on the first touch as the opposing goalie moves across his crease.
Rookie Alexander Holtz has two power play goals this season on one-timers from the left circle (the “Ovi-zoid” after Washington icon Alex Ovechkin) and Fabian Zetterlund beat Calgary in overtime with a 4-on-3 snipe from that spot. Holtz was a healthy scratch on Tuesday while Zetterlund toiled on PP2.
The Devils power play hasn’t been awful in the last six games, going 4-for-17 (23.5%, good for 17th in the league), but they’re 2-for-their-last-12. In general, they should be getting better looks given the talent on the ice.
The Devils’ two PP units can use some reconfiguring to account for proper roles. With wing Nathan Bastian out indefinitely with a shoulder injury, Miles Wood is the team’s best net-front presence, further evidenced by his redirection for Tuesday’s only goal. Dougie Hamilton is fine at the top of the blue line while Hughes and Hischier are experts at zone entries and can rotate along the off (right) wing boards. The second group should include: Damon Severson, Bratt, Mercer, Tomas Tatar and Zetterlund (again, no more Haula, please).
Andreas Johnsson, in his first appearance this season since being demoted to AHL Utica, was a waste of a lineup slot, invisible in 5:51 of ice time on Tuesday, so bring Holtz back and let him fire away one-timers on the power play.
3) Reinforce 5X5 Puck Management
The Devils have been advanced metric darlings all season. Even with this bump in the road, they still lead the league at five-on-five in expected goals for percentage and trail only Carolina in Corsi for percentage.
The last six games, however, haven’t been so spectacular. They’ve played opponents even, 12-12, at five-on-five and, if you remove the Black Hawks game, they’d be close to 50% in other attempts metrics. In other words, this isn’t a case where the Devils have run into a string of hot goaltenders.
Somewhat ironically. It’s been the Devils’ best d-men who have let down a bit. The Severson/Brendan Smith pair (Kevin Bahl gave Smith a breather on Tuesday and in the Nashville OT loss, registering a goal and an assist) has played cleaner than the Dougie Hamilton/Jonas Siegenthaler and John Marion/Ryan Graves pairings.
Just prior to Hintz’s goal, Hamilton iced the puck when he could have cleared it out, giving Dallas an offensive zone faceoff with 18 seconds remaining. That meant Ruff couldn’t bring out the defensively-steadier Marino/Graves pair (I have no idea why they weren’t matched up with the Stars’ top line to begin with) to replace Hamilton/Siegenthaler. Off their faceoff win, Dallas buzzed around the zone before finding Heiskanen open in the slot.
That type of sequence has been happening a lot recently, especially to Hamilton (on ice for 7 of the Devils’ 12 5X5 goals against in the last six games) and Siegenthaler (9 of the 12). If they don’t get their act together, The Athletic may have to amend their recent article that proclaimed them one of the best duos in the league.