As we wake up on this beautiful Monday morning, New Jersey Devils fans are basking in the fact that they sit in first place in the Eastern Conference. Through 18 games played, the New Jersey Devils are 13-4-1, good for a .750 points percentage. They’ve done a good job of locking in points at times where they have dealt with injuries.
Those points are going to be even more important now that they have to play without Jack Hughes again. For the third year in a row, Hughes is going to miss significant time after he injured his hand at a team dinner last week.
Hughes’s absence is going to impact every aspect of the Devils. He is their main driver of offense at 5v5, carries the puck for a majority of the power play, and is their most dangerous player on the penalty kill. Losing him is transformational for the Devils.
The Devils survived their first test without Hughes. On Saturday night, they beat the Washington Capitals in the shootout. Simon Nemec once again played hero, this time hitting the game-winner post overtime. It was another huge two points as the rest of the conference is right on Jersey’s tail.
Hughes is going to miss roughly 30 games this season. That’s a lot of offense the Devils will miss. If we go based on Hughes’s goal pace prior to his injury, the Devils have to find 18 goals that Hughes would have presumably scored.
How can the Devils find 18 goals in this offense? The number one change is that Nico Hischier has to become an offensive forward. He’s been focusing on the defensive side all season, and it’s really hurt his statistics. He only has three goals and nine assists in 18 games.
That can start changing on the power play. There’s one problem here: the Devils aren’t getting power plays.
According to MoneyPuck, the Devils have the fewest penalty minutes drawn per 60 minutes. They are the only team drawing fewer than 5.8 penalty minutes at 5v5. They are only taking seven minutes of penalties per 60 minutes, which is the third fewest in the league, so it’s not killing them in the PP discrepancy.
The New Jersey Devils aren't drawing enough penalties
This is a team that had Jack Hughes skating through sticks, and they weren’t getting the calls. Now, they have to put themselves in a place where they can get calls.
To understand the difference in the discrepancy, the Capitals are right in the middle of the league in terms of time on the power play this season. They have 19 more minutes on the mad advantage in the same number of games as the Devils. New Jersey just isn’t getting the calls, and they aren’t drawing the calls, either.
The Devils are currently fifth in the NHL, scoring on 25.5 percent of their power plays. In 20 minutes of power play time, they would have five more goals if they kept their percentages up. Think about all the ways you could spend those five goals to make the Devils look even better.
The Devils winning this many games while facing a deficit in penalty minutes like this is impressive. However, they need to find a way to put themselves on the power play more often.