New Jersey Devils: 5 Things We Learned About This Roster In 2020-21
The New Jersey Devils learned a lot in the 2021 truncated season. Obviously, there were situations that really hurt the learning curve. Specifically, the COVID outbreak really messed up what this season was all about. Most of the team played three rungs below what they were capable of because of a virus that attacks lung capacity. Looking beyond that, the Devils still learned a lot about this roster and what they can do with it moving forward.
This list will only look at players who are still on the roster. We won’t take the easy way out like “Nikita Gusev was not a good trade” or “Travis Zajac was a tradeable piece”. This is looking at what we learned about the roster in front of us now.
The experience from this season was brutal, but having such a young roster provided an interesting look into Lindy Ruff’s system. Veterans tend to play their game no matter what, but the young guns were able to put together Ruff’s vision to a tee. Players like Yegor Sharangovich, Michael McLeod, and Janne Kuokkanen come with completely different opinions because of what Ruff was able to do with them. Meanwhile, a player like Jesper Boqvist may not be a fit going forward.
There are definitely things we didn’t learn. We have no idea what Nico Hischier is going to become after this season. He was hurt, sick, or above average for every game. Those injuries may have lingered, but his defense definitely suffered. He was wearing a cage for most of his games, so no way to know how that impacted his vision. Hischier will not be on this list.
Someone who is on the list is Jack Hughes…
Jack Hughes Is Ready For Superstardom
Jack Hughes did everything this season. He controlled play on the offense. He changed up his game to be very reliable defensively. That showed with him trailing only Mark Stone in takeaways. He took on a bigger role in terms of team leadership despite still being a teenager the entire season. When the team needed a big interview, Hughes was the one who took it (although, he never really gave an answer to anything).
Hughes is this team’s star. He is the building block and the core piece that is going to decide whether this team is a contender one day or a team that is middling until it has to get rid of its best players. Even on a terrible team, there were plenty of nights where Hughes was the best player on the ice. He’s an analytical darling, and he was able to put up some counting stats.
Obviously, there are like six more levels he can go up. He’d be up one level with just a little luck. Jack Hughes hit as many posts as any player in the league. His eight posts were tied with Leon Draisaitl and Nathan MacKinnon for tops in the league. Look at the other players on this list (Auston Matthews, Brayden Point, Mika Zibanejad, Jordan Eberle, and Sidney Crosby were the only players with seven), this is a superstar list. Hughes just didn’t get the good luck to go along with his bad luck like the other players.
Things will turn around for Hughes. He’s going to be huge for the Devils moving forward, and it’s good to see him become exactly what the Devils hoped for when they took him first overall.
There Are Still Questions In Net
Going into training camp, the Devils had one of the best goaltender duos in the league. Mackenzie Blackwood was leaning on stardom last season, and if he was on a better team he might be there. To help take some of the workload off of him, Tom Fitzgerald signed former Stanley Cup Champion Corey Crawford. It was a very smart decision at the time and it gave the Devils a chance to win on a nightly basis.
Then, Crawford surprisingly retired. He left close to $8 million on the table to go home. Things just didn’t fit for him, and he decided that if he didn’t play in Chicago, he didn’t want to play anywhere. That left the Devils with just Scott Wedgewood, Gilles Senn, and Evan Cormier behind Blackwood.
The Devils eventually signed Jeremy Brodeur because they were required to have five goalies on the roster. Having to have a goalie on the taxi squad really put the Devils in a bind. The team eventually put in claims for both Eric Comrie and Aaron Dell so they would have some depth at the goalie position, but both of them are nowhere near as good as Crawford.
Then, there’s the season Blackwood put up. There were times where Blackwood looked elite, but there were other times where he looked below average. He said that his COVID diagnosis really put a damper on this season, but even when he was fully healthy he was inconsistent.
It’s clear the Devils are going to shoot for another goalie in free agency (or trade, but that’s much less likely). A 1A-1B situation is probably best for the time being. Blackwood has the skill to be a workhorse goalie, but it’s probably not in the Devils best interest to make that the only option. Get someone who can help him solidify the net like Crawford was supposed to.
There’s A Core Here, We Just Don’t Know Who
Obviously, we know Hischier and Hughes is part of the core. Fitzgerald said he considers Ty Smith part of the core, too. That’s great, but let’s see him do it for one normal season first. He looks really good, but he needs to prove it one more time.
Outside of Smith, Hughes, and Hischier, there are ten players who could theoretically be part of a really good core for a playoff team. However, only about three or four of those players will actually play consistently enough to stay on this team long term. Jesper Bratt and Pavel Zacha seem like the most obvious options at this point. They both have shown flashes in previous seasons, and they were more consistent this season. There is still more we’d like to see from them, but this is a good start.
Then, there’s Miles Wood. He led the team in goals this season, but he was maddeningly inconsistent the two seasons prior. Did he just learn how to fix his mistakes and grow up, or was this another outlier season like 2017-18?
The young players are in different tiers, but they could all be franchise greats or one-hit wonders. Yegor Sharangovich is the obvious case of curiosity. He dominated the KHL before coming over to the NHL and looking like a legit top-six winger. Out of nowhere, the Devils issues on the wing are a little less dire. Janne Kuokkanen finished the season on the top line. While nobody wants that to be where he ends up, he did just fine in that role.
Lesser players like McLeod, Nathan Bastian, Nick Merkley, Mikhail Maltsev, and Nolan Foote all showed different levels of promise to be core pieces, but there are still a lot of questions to answer. This is without even considering players who didn’t play this season like Alexander Holtz or Dawson Mercer.
Pavel Zacha Isn’t A Complete Bust
Speaking of Zacha, it’s nice to see that the Devils didn’t take a sixth-overall pick and light it on fire. Is everyone going to be happy with taking him over the likes of Kyle Connor, Mat Barzal, or Zach Werenski? Of course not, but he showed this season that he’s absolutely a piece that can help this team win moving forward. His prowess on special teams is an asset, and he can put up some points at 5v5 when paired with the right center.
Zacha led the team in points for most of the season. He was one of the few players actually performing on the power play. His 11 points in 50 games amount to 18 in an 82-game regular season. It’s fine, even if it isn’t spectacular. He was on pace for 57 total points if this were an 82-game season.
If the Devils have a 50-point player in Zacha, they will rejoice. Before this season, he looked like an elite penalty killer with very little offensive upside. He could go on a run where he scored four points in three games, but outside those bursts, the offense just wasn’t there. It was different this season. He was scoring all season long. He even added clutch scoring, putting in two goals in overtime.
Zacha might not be someone who’s “worth” the sixth-overall pick, but he’s definitely not a bust. When looking at previous sixth-overall picks, there are a lot of “fine” players (Hampus Lindholm, Sean Monahan, and Jake Virtanen). Zacha could be one of those players that takes another step forward, but we’re just fine if this is what he is.
Special Teams Are The Number-One Priority
There are a lot of priorities for the Devils this offseason. They want to weaponize their cap space to add draft pick capital. They need to figure out a strategy to target the Seattle Expansion Draft. There are holes on defense they need to fill. The team really needs some kind of veteran presence on offense. However, there is one priority that is above the rest.
The Devils penalty kill was historically bad. Their 70.9% penalty kill was one of the worst units ever. No, really. Only five teams since the NHL started tracking penalty kill percentage had a worse conversion rate. All of those teams played in the late 70s and early to mid-80s when teams were scoring at will.
The penalty kill must be fixed. Is it the players or the system? That’s what the Devils have to figure out. These players have contributed to good penalty kills in the past. However, losing Andy Greene, Ben Lovejoy, Blake Coleman, and Travis Zajac in recent years definitely isn’t helping. They probably need to focus on finding defensemen who can really kill penalties.
As far as the power play, it wasn’t historically bad, but it wasn’t good by any means. Only three teams had a worse power play percentage than the Devils this season. The team obviously used the slingshot power play philosophy that has driven Devils fans crazy for half a decade now. With players like Jack Hughes who are so good at entering the zone with possession, it seems like it makes sense, but it ends up forcing him to skate through defenders as soon as he enters the zone.
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The Devils are likely keeping Alain Nasreddine and Mark Recchi as assistant coaches, so they are the ones who need to make adjustments. Fitzgerald will also try to upgrade these units with new players. It can only get better from here, but it has to get better if this team is going to get better.