The New Jersey Devils haven’t played well as of late. A six-game road trip has humbled the Devils, as they are playing their worst hockey of the year. It seems like some of the players took too much time off during the Christmas Break because the team returned and has been awful ever since. The offense fails to put points on the board, as they’ve scored fewer than two goals per game during this six-game trip.
Now that the Devils are back home, the team needs to figure out what went wrong. Sheldon Keefe is no doubt going to take a look at everything when it comes to this roster. There is plenty of blame to go around. Jack Hughes made multiple mistakes on Thursday night against the New York Rangers in overtime that led to a loss. The Devils’ bottom six has gone ice cold offensively. Nico Hischier and Timo Meier aren’t scoring at 5v5. Heck, the only one who can’t be blamed is Jacob Markstrom, who has been one of the best goalies in the NHL.
When really looking at it, it’s the defense that should get some scrutiny right now, and it’s the one thing that Keefe can change that would make a difference. The Devils don’t have the pieces to add to the bottom six right now, and there aren’t enough bad teams to get a deal done.
There are two pairs that are facing the most scrutiny, and we can see why. Johnathan Kovacevic and Jonas Siegenthaler have been one of the best defensive pairs in the league. Nobody is going to blame them for anything (as they shouldn’t). So the focus is on Dougie Hamilton-Brenden Dillon and Luke Hughes-Brett Pesce.
Luke Hughes and Dougie Hamilton could solve both the Devils defensive and offensive issues at the same time.
Hughes and Hamilton have some time together just based on line changes falling into place at the right time. According to Natural Stat Trick, these two have played 42 minutes together at 5v5. That’s a decent sample size, and they’ve been insane together. As far as chances go, the Devils own 70% of the chances at even strength when it’s Hamilton and Hughes on the ice together. Without Hamilton, Hughes has 54% and without Hughes, Hamilton has 53%.
The expected goals are more than double for the Devils over against with these two on the ice together. The offense would go off with these two together. Nobody is denying that.
That would leave the Devils with Pesce and Dillon pairing together, which is the worst of two other lines. There’s a chance they could be terrible together, but they already have a sample size (30 minutes), and they’ve been really good. Despite being defensive-minded as a tandem, they still own 60 percent of the chances while on the ice.
They also avoid big chances against them. In those 30 minutes, they’ve only allowed two high-danger chances. Meanwhile, the offense has five high-danger chances themselves.
There are few decisions that make perfect sense, but this move would make perfect sense. The Devils need to make a change, and this is one of the few things, short of a trade, that would change the Devils’ offensive fortunes while also helping the defense. This is one of those situations where a good offense is your best defense. If the Devils are pressuring the opposing team, then they aren’t getting chances against them. It’s simple math, and Keefe should do something simple here.