New Jersey Devils Final Defense And Goalie Grades For 2020-21 Season
The New Jersey Devils defense was supposed to be fixed when P.K. Subban came to town last offseason. Adding him and Ty Smith to the 2019-20 Devils roster might have given them a decent blue line. They aren’t the Carolina Hurricanes or anything, but hopefully, they’d be competent. Well, that hope quickly turned into sorrow, and the Devils once again had one of the worst defensive cores in the league.
This season, the expectations were phenomenally lower. Two different bouts with COVID-19 hit the defensive group in waves, and the blue line as a whole didn’t really mesh. There were times where the team looked pretty good at 5v5, but the major issues on the penalty kill led to one of the worst goal differentials in the NHL. The Devils ended the season with a -49 goal differential. Only the Ducks, Blue Jackets, and Sabres were worse.
The Devils have a lot of work to do on the blueline, but there is hope for the future. It all starts with a former 1st-round pick that looks like he could be on the top line for a long time. All advanced stats come from the wonderful people at Natural Stat Trick.
Ty Smith
Ty Smith exploded onto the scene this season. He missed out on making the team last year, but he more than made up for lost time this season. He played 48 games despite missing the end of the regular season with an injury. Smith was at his best when he was paired with Damon Severson, who was at one time having a really good season. Smith was able to add offense at 5v5, and there was some showing of power-play prowess on the team’s first line. He ended up second on the team in assists behind Jesper Bratt, and he will finish somewhere in the top ten in Calder Trophy voting. He has some defensive inefficiencies, but those pale in comparison to the impact he has all over the ice. Smith fell off a little bit towards the end of the season, but there’s no way he could end this season without an A.
Grade: A
Damon Severson
Damon Severson played every game this season for the New Jersey Devils. It was only him and Jack Hughes who was in the lineup on a nightly basis. Severson at one point in the season looked like a legitimate top-line defenseman, but since March he’s been pretty bad. His team rankings 5v5 numbers since March 1st: Corsi For% 7th; xGF% 6th; High-Danger Chance% 7th. He was not very good in the second half of the season. He’s obviously someone who can provide a lot when he’s on, but his inconsistency will drive Devils fans insane. Severson is still only 26 years old. This is definitely someone who fits as a second-line right-handed defenseman for a long time, but he just couldn’t hold onto his first-line production for very long this season.
Grade: C+
P.K. Subban
Coming into this season, the expectations for P.K. Subban was to not be completely terrible. After he came with a ton of hype last season, everyone was hoping Subban could be a decent defenseman this year. Ignore the $9 million contract. Just let Subban be a good right-handed defender. He was that! Subban was bringing a lot of impact to the power play, he was scoring goals again, and he wasn’t terrible on the defensive end. Did he make mistakes? Of course, his game is built on volatility, but if this is the Subban he will be for the second half of his career, then he is someone we can get behind. Not even counting special teams, Subban is on the ice for a lot more high-danger chances than he is high-danger chances against. It would be ideal if he didn’t have to be on the penalty kill next season, but his price tag might force Lindy Ruff to keep him on the unit next season.
Grade: B
Will Butcher
Since the Devils lost two starters in Dmitry Kulikov and Sami Vatanen in the middle of the season, there is now a big drop off from Subban, who played 44 games this season, to Will Butcher, who only played 23. Butcher is one of the biggest disappointments this year only because he wasn’t able to crack the lineup for most of the year. The Devils have him under contract for one more season, so it made sense to give him a look, but he had trouble fitting into Ruff’s system, which is notoriously demanding of defensemen. Butcher looked better at the end of the season when he was given a look, but it’s hard to think his skating ability will ever work in this team’s philosophy. He had eight assists over the last 12 games of the season, so if he is in the lineup next year it won’t be the worst thing, but the expectations for Butcher moving forward are low.
Grade: C
Matt Tennyson
The Devils coaching staff always sees something in Matt Tennyson that they seem to think he deserves more of a look on the roster. He always seems like a good teammate, but on the ice he makes a ton of mistakes that can lead directly to goals against. He was last on the Devils in almost every category of advanced stat for players who played at least 20 games. Tennyson wasn’t able to provide much offense, and he was a liability on defense. He’s a veteran who’s willing to play in the AHL, so the coaching staff will want to reward that kind of commitment, but if this team was actually competitive it would be unacceptable.
Grade: D
Connor Carrick
Connor Carrick came into the season with low expectations, but he was actually decent down the stretch when he was forced into the NHL lineup. He spent most of the season on the taxi squad and in Binghamton, but he got into 11 games with New Jersey. His numbers overall aren’t anything to go home about, but he did play an average of 18:40 TOI in those 11 games. It shows the coaching staff trusted him as the season was winding down. He had his issues, but Carrick was at least a fine deep depth piece.
Grade: C+
Jonas Siegenthaler
This is cheating, since Jonas Siegenthaler only played in eight games for the Devils, but he did play in 15 games overall this season. The Devils traded a 3rd-round pick for Siegenthaler right before the NHL Trade Deadline. He’s a defensive defenseman who had good underlying numbers. That’s exactly what he brought to the Devils over the final stretch. He scored no points this season, but over those eight games, he had a better high-danger chance for percentage than anyone on the team. He was able to watch the team get offensive chances despite spending less than 30 percent of his faceoffs in the offensive zone. Siegenthaler helped clear the puck, and he is an obvious candidate to return next season.
Grade: B+
Mackenzie Blackwood
How is it possible to look absolutely elite one night and completely lost the next? That was the season for Mackenzie Blackwood. His aggregate stats look terrible because of the few stinkers he had throughout the season. Only seven goalies in the entire NHL had worse goals saved above average stats than Blackwood. He was even worse when teams were getting high-danger chances against him. Blackwood had times this season where he would “make the save nobody expected” like this save-of-the-year candidate against the Boston Bruins, but there were too many times he looked average in net. It likely has a lot to do with the COVID-19 diagnosis early in the season, so this could just be a throwaway season for him, but he has a lot to prove in 2021-22.
Grade: C
Scott Wedgewood
Scott Wedgewood is the Devils candidate for the Masterton Trophy for good reason. He came to the Devils as an extra behind Blackwood and Corey Crawford, but he was rushed into the backup role when Crawford decided his NHL career was over. Wedgewood hadn’t started an NHL game in three seasons before this year. So, for him to start 15 games and play well in most of them was great. While he only had three wins, two of them came via the shutout. He gave the Devils a chance to win. Don’t be surprised if the Devils try to bring him back as a third option next season.
Grade: B+
Next. Devils Forward Grades For 2020-21 Season. dark
Aaron Dell
Aaron Dell only played seven games for the Devils this season after he was claimed off of waivers from the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was a very strange season for him, but even taking that into account he wasn’t what the Devils needed. The Devils decided to keep Dell over Eric Comrie. Maybe that was still the right decision so Dell could provide a veteran presence of some kind, but his on-ice stats were not good. 4.14 GAA and an .857 save percentage won’t get anyone excited about what you did. Still, it was a strange situation so we’ll keep him from getting one of the worst grades.
Grade: C-