Too Early To Worry About New Jersey Devils Struggles

After a few big wins versus the Islanders and the Montreal Canadiens, the New Jersey Devils have truly hit their stride on the man advantage. During the summer, Tom Fitzgerald hired Travis Green to become the new associate coach, replacing Andrew Brunette, who left for the coaching job in Nashville. It was not long after we wrote about the theoretical effects of how Travis Green could help bolden a New Jersey Devils lineup.

The Travis Green Effect

A year ago, this New Jersey Devils power play was around league average, and now at the early start of the season the Devils under Travis Green has a mind-whopping 42% Power Play conversion rate. The Devils can keep the puck longer in the offensive zone, collapsing the defenders, clean and crisp passes and high amounts of traffic in front of goalies. That’s leading to this level of conversion. With the addition of Tyler Toffoli, who had a hat trick Tuesday night and two goals on Wednesday, the Devils added a big strength in creating a plethora of finishing touches on the Devils offensive strikes.

Jack Hughes, Tyler Toffoli, Dougie Hamilton, and Jesper Bratt each have multiple power play goals. This is a big plus for Tom Fitzgerald and his coaching staff to get the big gun players clicking when they should be scoring on the man advantages.

Goaltending

Akira Schmid is getting used to his first full season at the NHL level after doing well late last season and doing a phenomenal job in the playoffs. Vitek Vanecek and Schmid both have performed well enough to earn wins this regular season. It truly isn’t all on their shoulders as the whole problem pie needs to be examined. (Although, Wednesday night really hurt their argument.)

Akira Schmid and Vitek Vanecek are doing just fine early on in the season, according to Money Puck, the Devils are 30th in expected goals for at 5v5 at 9.22 below the NY Islanders. On the penalty kill, The Devils need to improve more as well.

To be quite fair, it is all on the newer mix of defenders learning under Ryan McGill’s system, like Kevin Bahl and Luke Hughes. This is why you can’t just trade a guy for a goalie in some chat room. Akira Schmid and Vitek Vanecek are going to hit their strides sooner rather than later. It won’t be all on them to do all the heavy lifting.

Penalty Kill

If the Devils can improve their defensive structure on the penalty kill, then you can knock off that 3.30 or 3.00 GAA to a 2.88 to 2.65, respectively. The New Jersey Devils will likely increase a much higher Goals Saved Above Expected per 60 and have their goalies ranked much higher in the NHL. The Devils still need to tweak the special teams unit on the penalty kill, and it is a learning curve that can be fixed sooner rather than later.

It is an 82-game season and not an 18-game season, so please sit back and relax while the season is young. This team is stacked and will snap out of that funk coming off an underwhelming penalty kill, and this team is starting to turn the corner as they are beginning to clamp down in that facet of hockey.