Every offseason that the New Jersey Devils miss the playoffs, we go in forgetting about a few of the guys who are on the roster. It’s either AHL players who had a cup of coffee in the NHL, or it's a player Tom Fitzgerald traded for in the middle of the season who only wore the jersey a few times. This year, there are two options: Maxim Tsyplakov and Nick Bjugstad.
There’s nothing wrong with anything they did, but the Devils were out of the playoffs since essentially January, and we just blocked out a lot of what happened after that, short of Jack Hughes scoring the Golden Goal and his speech to Devils fans after he returned.
So, let’s recap how Tsyplakov got here and what he did while he was here. Tsyplakov was traded to the Devils from the New York Islanders in the deal that sent Ondrej Palat and two draft picks to the division rival. The Islanders and Devils have made trades before, but this was the first they made since Lou Lamoriello stepped down, essentially ending his front-office career.
The biggest part of the trade for the Devils was obviously getting Ondrej Palat’s $6 million off the books. Tsyplakov has a huge deal compared to his value, getting $2.25 million against the cap next season. However, the Devils can buy this deal out, and it wouldn’t cost too much.
That’s still the most likely option for new Devils’ GM Sunny Mehta, but he might look at the statistics and keep him in New Jersey with a possibility he could turn things around. One specific statistic makes it seem like it’s possible.
Of all the players in the NHL, no player had a worse PDO (min. 200 minutes of 5v5 ice time) than Tsyplakov. He was the only player in the league who was under .900 in PDO according to Natural Stat Trick.
Maxim Tsyplakov was at the bottom of the league in popular "puck luck" statistic
For those who don’t know, PDO looks at a team's Shooting Percentage and its Save Percentage to help evaluate a team's overall performance with one particular player on the ice. Tsyplakov’s on-ice shooting percentage is 5.26% and his on-ice save percentage is .826. Those numbers are nearly impossible in a vacuum, but together, it shows the puck luck wasn’t on Tsyplakov’s side.
Other statistics shows issues with Tsyplakov’s game, including high-danger chances per 60 minutes, but his PDO shows that, with a little luck, his season would look a lot better. More than 700 players played at least 200 minutes, and Tsyplakov was at the bottom of the stat that traditionally measures puck luck.
Just look at his numbers with the Devils, which looked much worse than his numbers with the Islanders. Goalies gave up nine goals on 36 high-danger chances, but his offense only contributed one high-danger goal on 24 chances. There is a luck factor here.
Tsyplakov was a rough addition for the Devils, but he has good attributes and a 35-point season just a year ago. If Mehta decides to keep things as they are, it wouldn’t be the end of the world when it comes to Tsyplakov.
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