New Jersey Devils Among League’s Least-Penalized Teams Despite PK Woes
By Mike Luci
The 2020-2021 season has, for the most part, been hit-or-miss for the New Jersey Devils. Given how competitive the East Division is, they’re definitely holding their own (especially five-on-five) but have some glaringly obvious shortcomings that are killing them this season.
Like their penalty kill.
As of February 26, the New Jersey Devils currently possess the league’s worst PK percentage (58.3), which is 11.9 points lower than the 30th-ranked Philadelphia Flyers (70.2). The Devils have surrendered a league-leading 20 power-play goals despite missing two weeks of game action. Their PK has cost them winnable games—they’ve lost four times by one goal and surrendered power-play tallies in each game—and they’ve only killed 35.7 percent of penalties since February 16 (24.3 points lower than the 30th-ranked PK over that span).
The New Jersey Devils PK is bad, but there is a silver lining here.
Among the incessantly-mounting failures, this unbearably-frustrating debacle that is the New Jersey Devils’ penalty kill has endured, there is a silver lining.
It turns out that despite their gut-wrenching performance in shorthanded situations, New Jersey is among the league’s least-penalized teams. I could emphasize their aggregated numbers pertaining to penalty stats this season—second-lowest total PIMs (112) and penalties taken (52), 27th in times shorthanded (48), tied for second-fewest minor penalties taken (46) and shorthanded ice time (73:38)—but that would be misleading, given how the Devils are currently tied for fewest games played this season (15). Compared to the league average of games played as of February 26 (18.77), New Jersey has nearly four games in hand over that figure.
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A more precise way of determining the Devils’ standing among penalized teams is to compare these metrics on a per-game basis, which still paints a favorable picture. The New Jersey Devils are 26th among NHL teams in penalty minutes per game (7:28), 24th in penalties taken per 60 minutes (3.41), and 19th in times shorthanded per game (3.20). To break these stats down further, New Jersey is presently 26th in shorthanded ice time per game (4:50) and 25th in minor penalties taken per game (3.06).
At first glance, it’s worth noting their 19th-ranked average of times shorthanded per game, compared to where they stand in other categories signals that the Devils (when they get them) don’t kill penalties for too long during games. This of course is primarily due to how quickly they’re scored on when shorthanded, and some instances of remaining a player down when coming out of four-on-fours or similar scenarios.
While it definitely doesn’t seem it, the New Jersey Devils are surprisingly one of the league’s most-disciplined teams and have done a good job at staying out of the box this year. Maybe one reason they take so few penalties is the players are wary of how likely their opponent is to convert on those opportunities. It’s good practice to stay out of the box regardless of their PK performance, however, the relation between New Jersey’s costly struggles in these scenarios and how often they’re in them sheds light on their sufficient play in most other situations (with an arguable exception to the power play).
Perhaps the biggest takeaway here is how much better this New Jersey Devils team would be if they could figure out their dysfunctional play while shorthanded.