Pleasant Surprises and Unexpected Disappointments From Devils’ Mediocre First Half
The Devils opened up the second half of their season on Thursday with a 3-2 loss at two-time Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay. Their sixth defeat—all in regulation—over their last seven games dropped their record to 15-22-5 and all but assures that the remainder of their slate will be the proverbial playing out the string for a fourth consecutive year and ninth time in the last ten seasons.
That the Devils are mired in mediocrity is hardly unexpected. They are the NHL’s youngest team and have been battered by injuries and/or COVID-19 quarantines to most of their key players.
However, there have been a few surprising developments this season—some good, some not so good. Here’s what I’ve seen on both ends of the spectrum:
Pleasant Surprises:
1) The Jesper Bratt Leap
Devils fans have witnessed the high skill level of the diminutive wing during his first four seasons, but nothing like the dominant force he’s been over the team’s last 37 games. I stand by my column (Hughes Not The Man For Devils 2022 All-Star Representative (substack.com)) from two weeks ago that advocated for Bratt as the Devils’ All-Star representative over Jack Hughes. After going scoreless in his first five contests, Bratt has registered 14 goals and 25 assists, including a pair of helpers on Thursday, which has him ranked 15th in the league in points since October 30. He has been the team’s best play driver all season as measured by advanced stats like Corsi percentage and expected goals percentage. Not too shabby for a 2016 sixth-round pick now in a contract year, albeit as a pending restricted free agent.
2) Nathan Bastian, Power Play Whisperer
Though Devils coach Lindy Ruff’s experiment to plant a big body at the net front on Devils’ power plays seemed obvious to me since the preseason, the idea that Bastian, a fourth-liner who was allowed to go unprotected to Seattle in the offseason’s expansion draft before returning to New Jersey on waivers, would get the nod came out of left field. The NBA tracks something called “screen assists” that tabulates how many times a player sets a pick to free a shooter who then scores. If only the NHL publicized the number of times a Bastian screen directly helped a teammate plant one behind the opposing goalie, like defenseman Damon Severson’s power play goal to open Thursday night’s scoring. Ruff elevated the six-foot four Bastian to that role during a game against Pittsburgh on December 19. Previously, the Devils were tied for last in the league in power play percentage at 12.5%; in the 13 games since, however, they are humming at the fifth-best rate at 28.6% (though Tampa Bay’s shorthanded goal on Thursday was a killer). Bastian may have only been credited with two goals and an assist, but he was on the ice creating havoc in front on all ten Devils power play goals in that span.
Major Disappointments:
1) Back To The Drawing Board For Blackwood
Going into the season, there was some talk that Blackwood would be in contention for Team Canada’s Olympic squad. Though the NHL won’t be sending its players anyway due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blackwood’s odds of securing a spot dropped off the board following a first half riddled with injuries and inconsistencies. His .894 save percentage places him 48th out of 53 goalies with at least 600 minutes and he is in the minus category (minus 9.87 to be exact, per NaturalStatTrick.com) in goals saved above average, the league’s third-worst. That means he isn’t just letting in the opponent’s high danger chances at an inordinately high rate, he’s also been guilty of goaltending malpractice too often. To add injury to insult, Blackwood was shut down after a desultory performance in a 4-1 loss to visiting Arizona last week to have his heel that was surgically repaired in the offseason reexamined. Backup Jonathan Bernier has already been declared out for the season with a hip injury, so the Devils are up the creek as far as goaltending quality going forward, but that’s beside the point. In his first three seasons, the 25-year old Blackwood, a second round pick in the 2015 NHL Draft, displayed all the tools that made Devils fans believe he was the future of the franchise. That belief now has to be questioned this offseason.
2) What The Heck Happened To Ty Smith?
Sophomore slumps are more than a myth, but the degree to which Smith, a 2018 first-round pick (No. 17 overall), has fallen off the charts has been alarming. Before sitting out the three games prior to Thursday’s with an upper body injury, his game was a gaffe fest. If Smith wasn’t directly giving pucks away to feed scoring chances against, they’d hop over his stick into opposing skaters’ wheelhouses in front of the Devils’ net. For the first 25 games of the season, he sported the league’s lowest expected goals-for percentage (400 minutes minimum)—he has since risen to 11th worst out of 451 skaters. Smith hasn’t even been all that effective quarterbacking the Devils power play, with four assists and one shot on goal in over 60 minutes of ice time. This has been quite a comedown from last season, when he finished seventh in the voting for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year. The Devils played more in the offensive zone then, according to the advanced metrics. If you think it’s because the team sheltered him in terms of matchups and zone starts, I’d argue they’re protecting him more this season because their added depth allows them to. Smith was paired with Severson for 454 minutes last season at five-on-five, generating a healthy 54% of the high-danger scoring chances; this season its’ been the reverse, with just a 42% high-danger scoring chance percentage in 142 minutes together. It’s not Severson, who has thrived alongside Jonas Siegenthaler, it’s Smith.