It's been well documented how important Connor Brown is to this Devils lineup, even if he is in a depth role in 2026-27 rather than the top-six role he ended up in last season. It's only been five games since he returned from a lower-body injury that kept him out of the first couple of weeks of the current campaign, but the differences this season have been noticeable.
So far, Brown has accrued two goals -- both of which came in an ugly but expected loss to the Colorado Avalanche -- and an assist across five games, while averaging 13:18 of ice time per game. He has been a staple on the team's fourth line, alongside Amadeus Lombardi and Cody Glass, as well as being a stalwart presence on the penalty kill.
The special teams aspect of it has been far and away Brown's biggest impact on the team since his return, with the Devils' man-disadvantage struggling until his infusion into the lineup. Since getting back on October 20th, the Devils have seen the following improvements to their penalty-killing metrics on a per-two-minute basis, according to Bryce Salvador, who was kind enough to show some insights from Sportlogiq:
Before Brown | After Brown | |
|---|---|---|
Completed passes to slot | 1.74 | 1.17 |
Slot pass attempts | 2.71 | 2.18 |
Shots on net | 1.79 | 1.17 |
Slot shots on net | 1.12 | 0.67 |
Inner-slot shots on net | 0.61 | 0.33 |
One player has had an immense impact on the New Jersey Devils penalty kill
Of course, the sample sizes are small on both sides of the table, with just eight games pre-Brown and five games with him. Still, those are sizeable differences -- that's a 33% deduction in completed passes to the slot, a 20% reduction in slot pass attempts, 35% fewer shots on net, 40% fewer slot shots on net, and 46% fewer inner-slot shots on net. No matter which way you slice it, the Devils have significantly improved the PK since Brown's return.
In those five games with Brown, the Devils have only taken six penalties, and they have killed five of them while scoring a shorthanded goal (which, of course, belongs to Brown himself).
He has been an irreplaceable facet of the shorthanded crew, which has only become more important given that a top penalty killer (Dawson Mercer) was sent to Winnipeg in the trade that brought Connor Hellebuyck to New Jersey.
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