New Jersey Devils: Questioning John Hynes Lineup Decisions
By Tyler Kelley
The New Jersey Devils are still currently in 2nd place in the Metro, but are coming off their 3rd straight regulation loss. With Taylor Hall out the past two games Coach John Hynes had to juggle the lines. Those decisions haven’t been the best.
New Jersey Devils head coach John Hynes was forced to juggle lines after Taylor Hall went down with a hand injury. That’s to be expected when your Hart Candidate left wing goes out. However, that doesn’t explain Hynes demand for accountability and his lack of holding Travis Zajac accountable. I wrote yesterday about what was wrong with the Devils and certain trends continued.
In last nights loss to the Boston Bruins, Zajac played the fourth most of any Devils forward. On the other hand, Nico Hischier only played more than Jimmy Hayes. Let me put that in perspective everyone. Currently Hischier is 35th in the league with 5v5 P/60 rate of 2.42. Zajac is 421st in the league with a P/60 of 0.81.
As the late great Billy Mays said, but wait, there’s more!
Let’s simply look at Zajac’s numbers relative to the team last night. He posted a -35.29 CF% Rel, a -33.16 FF% rel, -54.07 SF% rel. For someone who’s supposed to be defensive minded, he also posted a -33.33 HDCF% Rel.
To be fair to Zajac, he posted even possession numbers against Boston’s top line of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, and Brad Marchand. If not for an ill-advised pinch from Ben Lovejoy, he likely would have kept them to no even strength goals. Even the first goal Zajac was on against was extremely flukey. However, he was absolutely dominated by David Krejci’s line.
So maybe the issue is simply overutilization of Travis Zajac. Against Boston’s top line, Zajac was effective, but with minutes against their 2nd and 3rd lines he was dominated. Nico Hischier, who played less than everyone except Jimmy Hayes, posted outstanding numbers against the David Backes line, but just didn’t get enough ice time.
The loss of Hall hurts and limiting your 2nd leading scorer’s ice time is not the solution. Clearly, it’s tougher to get desired matchups on the road, but Zajac can still be effective defensively and is clearly ineffective offensively.
I think the Zajac situation we’re currently seeing is similar to what we saw Ben Lovejoy go through last year. He was forced into a role that was out of his scope. Given a different role he can excel again just as Lovejoy has been great for New Jersey this year.
Injury Issues
If Hall is out Thursday for the game against Nashville at the Rock, it will be interesting to see how these lines shake out. In addition to Hall, Marcus Johansson suffered an injury when Brad Marchand essentially elbow dropped Johansson.
It may be time to give John Quenneville a call up and we may see Mackenzie Blackwood called up as well if Cory Schneider isn’t ready to go.
I’d like to see lines something like this if Hall isn’t ready and Mojo is out:
Bratt-Nico-Palmieri
Q-Zacha-Stafford
Wood-Coleman-Noesen
Boyle-Zajac-Hayes
Next: What’s Wrong With the New Jersey Devils and How Can They Fix It?
Nashville is a tough matchup for any team but its one the Devils desperately need to win heading into the All-Star break.
All stats from NaturalStatTrick.com