It was all sunshine and roses early in the season for the New Jersey Devils. They opened the campaign with eight wins in nine games, but Jack Hughes' injury changed everything. With Hughes in the lineup, the Devils had a 12-4-1 record and were atop the Metropolitan Division. Without Hughes, they are 4-8-0.
Not only are the Devils struggling to score without their best goalscorer, but they are also quite ineffective on the power play. Started as one of the most prolific teams with a man up, the Devils now failed to score a power-play goal on the previous five occasions.
The Devils are looking flat on offense and without an answer against opposing defenses, even weak ones. But what's most concerning is the fact that New Jersey attempted a miserable two shots on goal in this span. That's two shots on goal in 10 minutes with an extra skater! At least the Devils scored in the latest defeat to the Boston Bruins and avoided setting a negative franchise record.
Timo Meier, who was lone on a scoresheet for the Devils in their past three games, scored the previous power play goal in a loss to the Columbus Jackets. That was four games ago. Now it seems like 4 vs 4 on ice when the Devils are a man up; they push in opposing thirds, and the puck is moving reasonably well, but without an end product.
Can the Devils improve power play struggles?
The Devils' 1st power play unit is: Mercer, Hischier, Bratt, Meier, and Nemec, which looks very good on paper. The problem is that this unit hasn't produced in the last five power plays, and it's hard to explain why.
The second unit is: Noesen, Palat, Gritsyuk, Hamilton, and Hughes. None of them has more than four points in PP situations so far in the season. Luke Hughes, who is the team's third-best assists-maker, has four power-play assists to his name, so maybe he could be an answer to unit 1's struggles. Sheldon Keefe should make a change or two and put Luke Hughes in unit 1 and take Simon Nemec out. Although he is New Jersey's top scorer among defensemen, Nemec has zero power-play points!
Another solution is a possible trade. Numerous rumors are circulating around the Devils, with one of the latest being Steven Stamkos' potential arrival from the Nashville Predators. He did score only two PP goals this year, but in all honesty, Stamkos is playing for one of the weakest teams in the NHL, and the bottom-placed Predators in the Central Division. Stamkos' teammate Ryan O'Reilly is in better form at the moment and is one of the trade targets as well.
With the current state of New Jersey's offense, either of them would undoubtedly be an improvement, not only in power plays, but in general.