The New Jersey Devils iced 13 different defensemen pairings in 2023-24 that played at least 100 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time, led by Kevin Bahl and John Marino playing nearly 600 minutes together. This post looks at how they did and what it could mean for this coming season.
One of the facts I found from Friday’s post about an impending big contract extension for Luke Hughes was how awful a pairing of Brendan Smith and Luke Hughes was. It was awful as the duo was outscored 3-16 in close to 240 minutes of 5-on-5 play. On its own, it was bad. Was it the worst pairing on the New Jersey Devils last season? Arguably, yes, thanks to one of the tools at Natural Stat Trick that focuses on a team’s defensive pairs.
It was also a function of how banged up the defense was last season. In 2022-23, the Devils had six pairings play over 100 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time. Four of those six involved Damon Severson. Lindy Ruff and his staff stuck to Dougie Hamilton and Jonas Siegenthaler for over 1,000 minutes and kept Ryan Graves with John Marino for over 800 minutes. And a quick glance at their 5-on-5 on-ice numbers shows that those were good decisions. In 2023-24, the Devils had 13 different defensemen pairings play over 100 minutes. The leading pair in ice time being a John Marino-Kevin Bahl duo that lasted for close to 600 minutes. That terrible Smith-Hughes pairing was the seventh most used pairing of the season. Injuries and performances required a lot of shuffling with mixed results yielding even more combos thrown at the proverbial wall, hoping to proverbially stick. As you would expect, the results were mixed at best.
5-on-5 On Ice Stats for the Devils for the 13 Defensemen Pairings That Played Over 100 Minutes in 2023-24
Natural Stat Trick
I decided to highlight the best performing pairings in each category in green and the worst in grey. To further justify how terrible Smith-Hughes was, their row has a lot of grey. The Devils were out-shot, out-chanced, and out-scored the worst among these 13 pairings in 2023-24. I understand these are small population sizes but I fail to understand how a coaching staff – especially an experienced one – saw these results and kept with 43-2 as a pairing. It was not like the Devils were dominating with the other pairings such that they had to be kept together by default.
The above chart shows some of the addition the Devils defense is obtaining by subtraction. No more Hughes-Smith is a great thing. Smith and Kevin Bahl were not a positively contributing pairing outside of high-danger chances. Marino and Luke Hughes were better performers than Marino and Bahl – which begs another question why the latter got more ice time than the former. If the other defensemen were keeping Nick DeSimone out of the lineup, then that turned out to be a potential mistake. The one pairing DeSimone got over 100 minutes was with Luke Hughes and it was quite good. Another potential mistake may be not utilizing Colin Miller enough and trading him to Winnipeg; he was great with nearly 300 minutes of Luke Hughes and just over 100 with Bahl. However, the Devils defensemen not returning did not play amazingly well with most other defensemen last season. While it is unknown how the new players will do, we know that the coaches do not have to make us wince at Smith-Hughes or Bahl-Nemec or Siegenthaler-Marino or even Bahl-Marino (for a 600-minute pairing, that is not a bad statline but also not all that good either).
As for those green cells I highlighted, plenty of them came with a pairing that can return for next season and arguably should be returning as a pairing: Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec. I recall the concern/complaints about putting two rookies together. Two inexperienced defensemen together? How can they possibly survive in the NHL? In the 176:50 they played together, the Devils dominated the attempts, the shots, the chances, the expected goals, and the actual goals. Similar to the Smith-Hughes experience, I fail to understand how a coaching staff saw this happening and decided to not give them more minutes. There is a thought that the future of the Devils defense may hinge on a Hughes-Nemec pairing. This is evidence that it can absolutely work and work especially well.
For emphasis, I highlighted the four Devils pairings that could possibly return for 2024-25 since Brendan Smith (free agency), Kevin Bahl (trade), John Marino (trade), and Colin Miller (trade) are no longer with the New Jersey Devils. Which speaks to how much of an overhaul the Devils blueline is getting beyond just a return of Dougie Hamilton. Those four pairings are in red. The only one of the four that was bad was Jonas Siegenthaler and Simon Nemec. While not a debacle like Bahl-Nemec or Smith-Nemec or Smith-Hughes, the team was out-performed across the board of attempts, shots, chances, and goals when Siegenthaler-Nemec took a shift. Fortunately, that was one out of four. The other three did great.
What This Could Mean for 2024-25’s Blueline
Last season’s numbers does give Sheldon Keefe and his staff some workable options ahead of training camp. Siegenthaler-Hamilton had strong numbers outside of goal differential and we know from 2022-23 how strong that pairing can perform. Keefe and Jeremy Cotillion are new but Ryan McGill, who is the assistant in charge of the defense, is not. He knows how that can work out well. Hughes-Nemec may invite concerns from the more, ahem, traditionally minded fans and analysts. But the facts matter more than tradition. I think their great results last season absolutely warrant a reunion in this coming season. And while he is a #7 (or #8) defenseman, DeSimone can absolutely not be a disaster with Hughes.
Of course, it is not going to be that simple. With Keefe replacing Ruff and Green, it is possible that the swarm-heavy, transition-focus tactics for the defense may change. That will impact how the defensemen perform. Additionally, the significant signings of Brett Pesce and Brenden Dillon will warrant inclusion for big minutes. Unless Pesce and Dillon play well together, I would expect the coaches to try each out with others in preseason and regular season play. It may work out well, it may not, but no one will know unless they try. And do not forget about the trade for Jonathan Kovacevic. He may have already jumped DeSimone on the depth chart and it would be warranted to see what he could do too. And that’s fine. Again, it may work out well, it may not and it has to be tried out. My hope is that if it is clear that it is not working then I do not want Keefe to stick with something not providing results. Especially if it is to adhere to some convention that is not really helping on the ice.
One of the two larger points to this is that Keefe is not coming into camp with a totally blank slate on defense. Yes, there are new players that will command significant minutes. The ones that remain from last season and prior are not total unknowns. A healthy Hamilton may be exactly what Siegenthaler needs to bounce back from a disappointing 2023-24. With a rookie season under their belts, there may be more trust in putting Hughes-Nemec together to potentially shine on the ice. These are pluses for the staff go into camp.
The second larger point is that this shows that management had reason to remake the blueline as they did and go after Keefe as a head coach. Clearly, Hamilton’s injury threw a lot of things out. However, the pairings that Ruff and Green decided on icing ranged to OK to real bad and the stats show that they did not make the best possible decisions. The stats also showed that the team was right to move on from Kevin Bahl and Brendan Smith, whom did not mesh all that well with other defenders for the benefit of the team. Marino was actually good with Luke Hughes, but less so next to Bahl and Siegenthaler. Given that his contract (or Siegenthaler’s) had to move to make more space for Pesce, I understand the decision to move on there too. The only one that does not make much sense is Miller, who did quite well when he did play. However, you cannot undo not playing someone and so that will remain as a what-if. In any case, this is what addition by subtraction looks like. Removing players that were not contributing and adding players that could do better. Which is what Tom Fitzgerald did with Pesce and Dillon.
Your Take
With any hope, we will find out in preseason whom works well with whom so that Keefe and his staff can ice multiple pairings that helps the Devils win games. As it is, he has two options already before he runs a single drill. Again, it is a plus.
Now I want to know what you think. Did you know how rough some of the pairings were last season? Were you surprised to see who did well by the stats, perhaps better than you expected? Are you also surprised that last season’s staff did not follow the results perhaps as they should? Will Keefe do so instead? Which pairings would you re-unite for the start of next season? Please leave your answers and other thoughts about the defense in the comments. Thank you for reading.