New Jersey Devils: 3 Surprises From The Athletic’s Player Cards
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils may have lost Corey Masisak as The Athletic’s representative covering the team, but at the same time, they promoted Shayna Goldman as a full-timer. She has been doing a lot, but she’s also changed her focus to the Devils. She clearly has her hands in multiple different projects for The Athletic’s hockey side. One of which is working with Dom Luszczyszyn on The Athletic’s player cards.
Player cards have been a staple in the analytics community for a long time. Many were clamoring for The Athletic, which has been using these stats for a long time, to make cards of their own. They are now out, and the New Jersey Devils are described in these cards.
When looking at the cards, there are some things we learn that we already know. Dougie Hamilton is a superstar defenseman that can’t be touched offensively. Maybe his defensive stats might surprise some (before his injury, he was on pace for some pretty bad defensive stats), his offense more than makes up for it. Also, he’s paired with Ryan Graves, who is well above average on the defensive side of things.
However, there were some surprises when going through the player cards. There were players that didn’t hit the peaks we expected them to, and there are others that were ranked much higher than we thought they would. It’s a great exercise to see how the analytics community sees this team, especially since they look at the players compared to the rest of the league. These aren’t analysts with rose-colored glasses. There is no reason to go too far one way or the other.
When looking at the cards, there were a few things that stood out. Here are three things that surprised us the most.