The New Jersey Devils finally sent down Steve Santini to Binghamton. While I believe he can play in the NHL, either way he needs to play.
The New Jersey Devils finally pulled the trigger and sent Steve Santini down to the Binghamton Devils. Clearly, the defenseman had fallen out of favor with head coach John Hynes, and he needs to prove himself once again.
The Devils have been going with seven defenseman over the past few games, yet Santini was still sitting in the owner’s box. Mirco Mueller’s return combined with Ben Lovejoy’s decent play makes Santini expendable for the current roster.
It’s much better for Santini to get game action in the minors over just practice time in the NHL. The 22-year-old defenseman showed signs of greatness earlier in the year, but just made way too many mistakes.
The issue with mistakes is a defenseman can’t really fix them in practice drills. It is going to take game action to fix those mistakes in the middle of the season. Santini needs to change his instincts.
There were way too many situations where Santini was caught on the wrong side of a two-on-one. When I say the wrong side, I mean he was chasing from behind. His intuition was wrong on when to pinch on multiple occasions, leaving Cory Schneider and Keith Kinkaid out to dry.
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Santini obviously wasn’t the only defenseman playing below expectations, but he is probably the one with the biggest upside. Therefore, you need him to keep his confidence, while also tweaking his hockey IQ. If the team can’t fix it quickly, this snowball could turn into an avalanche fast.
Many would argue Santini deserves his spot in the NHL lineup more than Lovejoy, but I disagree. Lovejoy has been playing great, especially on the penalty kill. In the past eight games, the Devils penalty kill has been at 83.3 percent. Half of those games they were perfect on the penalty kill.
Santini will make his way to the minors, and he can easily make the most of it. Binghamton has been a tire fire this year, but that’s just an opportunity for Santini. He can prove he can be a step above for a team struggling. That’s what Hynes needs to see to trust him again.