Since being acquired back in the 2022-23 season, Timo Meier has been somewhat disappointing from a box score standpoint despite having the underlying juice to support the acquisition. He has consistently put up excellent under-the-hood metrics with underwhelming realized production.
When he was acquired, he was thought of as a potential fixture alongside all-world talent and franchise cornerstone Jack Hughes. After all, Meier was a perennial 30-plus-goal power winger who, on paper, provided the very type of game that most believe would work well alongside Hughes and his "soft" playstyle.
Over time, though, the narrative has shifted dramatically, and the consensus opinion is that the duo do not work well together. Many argue that it's because both players want to be "the guy" on their line, in charge of doing the majority of playdriving with the puck on their own stick rather than allowing other linemates to take the reins.
The reality is, though, they have sported some pretty pristine underlying numbers together.
In the last three years, as per NaturalStatTrick, Meier and Hughes have played 521:06 together at 5v5, which may seem like a reasonable amount of time but in reality, is a small sample size over the course of three campaigns. In that span, they have produced an expected goal share (xGF%) of 53.77%. They also have controlled 56.23% of the scoring chances, 51.24% of the high-danger chances, and 55.62% of the shot attempts. All of those are clear signals that, when they're on the ice together, the Devils are far and away the better team over their opposition.
Fascinatingly, the actual goal differential favors the opponents, though, with the Devils getting outscored 25-24 in their minutes. There's a clear gap between the on-ice happenings and actual results, suggesting a good bit of snakebite in their time together rather than them truly not meshing.
Perhaps it's time, then, that they get tried together one more time. Training camp is just a couple of weeks away, and the Devils have plenty of top-nine depth to allow them to try different things out. Sunny Mehta and company are keen on playing hockey with strong underlying numbers -- trotting out No. 86 and No. 28 is just that.
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