Miles Wood Needs To Work On Possession To Help New Jersey Devils
Miles Wood was a big surprise for the New Jersey Devils. He scored some big goals and had good stats from the third line. The issue is the advanced stats.
There aren’t many New Jersey Devils’ fans who came into the season thinking Miles Wood could become what he did. After scoring in his first game after a call up at the end of November, he didn’t spend another second in the AHL.
While Wood was a surprise bright spot on the Devils season, he definitely hit a “rookie wall” at the end of the season. He was one of the very few players who had any chance of light the lamp outside the top six, but didn’t score after February 19th.
The advanced stats painted a picture that’s more bleak.
According to hockey reference, Wood was near the bottom of the team in Corsi For percentage at even strength (stat used to estimate puck possession numbers). He had a 41.4% stat, which was just above Devante Smith-Pelley at the bottom of the Devils stat chart. That shows he was almost doing more bad than good in terms of possession.
His Fenwick For percentage is just as bad (stat that shows shots and misses for and against his line). Coming in a just over 43 percent shows his line allows many more scoring chances than they get. What is really weird is Wood ranks 32nd on the team while his linemate Pavel Zacha ranks 18th.
At the end of the day, Wood is just 21 years old. Possession numbers for a skilled forward playing on a bad team usually don’t translate well. The issue is Wood ranked towards the bottom of the Devils in most advanced stats.
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He is basically guaranteed a roster spot next season. Since the Devils would never want to lose him, Wood needs to make these changes while playing in the big leagues. If he can show that last season’s slumps and bad possession decisions were just blips on his career radar, the Devils may have a budding star on their hands. If he continues to fall into bad habits, he could fall into bad favor with the Devils brass, and they could lose him as fast as they lost Reid Boucher.
This offseason may be the most important in Wood’s career. He has confidence knowing he is an official NHL player. He needs to understand that while it seems guaranteed he makes the roster, anything can happen. If he doesn’t fix the issues, then he can become a minor leaguer once again.
Despite the negativity, Wood is one of the best things about the Devils right now. His excitement on the ice, his legit scoring touch, his willingness to stick up for teammates, all these qualities are the reason his possession numbers are mostly surprising. If he works on his possession numbers this offseason, he could work his way to being a Devils star.