New Jersey Devils Player Grades For October

Will Butcher: B-

Will Butcher has been a combination of really good and really bad, but nothing in between. After his shoulder injury, which caused him to miss the end of the Dallas Stars game, he just hasn’t been the same. A lot of it had to do with his partner Ben Lovejoy getting hurt, and him being stuck with Eric Gryba, but Butcher would be an A if he played like he did to start.

He had three assists in the first four games. Butcher played so well in the Devils first four wins. He fell off a map after that shoulder injury. Not sure if the injury is what caused the fall of in play, but it’s a reality. He’s been in bad positions. He needs to play better if he is going to take a step in the right direction.

Ben Lovejoy: B-

Ben Lovejoy has been great for what we expect of him. The only issue is he got injured. Lovejoy missed three games, but came back for the Devils annihilation at the hands of the Lightning. We don’t expect other games to go as bad as that one did, but when there’s only six games to compare that’s going to take a hit on the ole stats page.

Lovejoy and Butcher have been a great pairing for the most part. Their advanced stats had them with some of the best pairings in the league to start the year. If Lovejoy and Butcher can find the magic they had to start, they will find themselves in higher tiers soon.

Miles Wood: B-

Miles Wood might deserve a better grade here, but his penchant for penalties knocked him down a peg or two. He’s been much better at positioning, found somewhat of a scoring touch, can pass much better and still has that blazing speed. The issue is he makes bad decisions that end with him in the box for a minimum of two minutes.

Wood has six minors and a fighting major in nine games. He had three penalties in one period. Besides the penalties, however, Wood has been great. He clearly worked on the aspects of the game that he needed to. As long as he gets the penalties cleaned up, he will get his grades up.

Keith Kinkaid: B-

Keith Kinkaid was an unequivocal A+ at the start of the year. People were calling Kinkaid an elite goalie, when he carried the Devils meh defense to great statistics. To be fair, he wasn’t facing a ton of high-danger chances, but he was stopping more than he had to.

However, things haven’t gone great since the start for the man in net. Kinkaid has started every single game to start the year, which might make things harder to judge. We don’t know what another goalie looks like in net. After shutouts in two of the first four games, Kinkaid has less than a .900 save percentage in all but one game in the past five. The Devils only won one game with Kinkaid having a less than .900 save percentage. He needs to play a little better than he has lately, but overall were happy with the performance.