The New Jersey Devils won 52 games in 2022-23 and still had 13 games where they got goalied. The 2023-24 Devils were more disappointing but how often did they get goalied? How often did they goalie their opponents? This post provides the surprising details.
One of my favorite posts of the 2022-23 season was coming up with a method to identify when a team gets “goalied.” That is when a team seemingly does whatever they want at times in a game to attack their opponent and they would score plenty of goals if it was not for one man: the goaltender. The method is a rule-of-thumb: if the difference between actual goals scored (GF) and expected goals (xGF) for is -2 or greater, then you got goalied. (Aside: I use the Natural Stat Trick model, which assigns a value for attempts by factors – mostly shot location – based on past history. Sum it up for a game and you have a team’s xGF. That is also your “expected by whom.”)
Getting goalied happens to everyone. Even a 52-win New Jersey Devils in the 2022-23 season suffered from it. 12 times in the regular season and once in the playoffs. (Aside: I attempted a mathematical basis to justify the -2 difference) If that happened 13 times to a really, really, really good New Jersey Devils team, then how often did it happen to a very disappointing 2023-24 New Jersey Devils team?
The 2023-24 Devils Getting Goalied
Here is the list of all of the times where the Devils were goalied. Often for a loss. Often, not always.
Data source: Natural Stat Trick
These ten games represent some of the most frustrating and just plain awful performances last season. The infamous February 22 game against Our Hated Rivals will be known for when Matt Rempe headshotted Nathan Bastian and was thrown out of the game less than 20 seconds into it. For the record, the Devils absolutely stunk up the Rock in that one as they bled goals while Igor Shesterkin stonewalled them. You have some other infamous evenings in this set of ten games. The terrible loss to Anaheim in Newark. The miserable loss to San Jose – then a winless road team – in Newark. A second frustrating loss in Anaheim in the same month where Stone Cold Steve Austin day yielded a disgrace in Arizona. Getting goalied usually comes with a bad night and there were plenty of those amid these ten games.
I put three of these games in italics as they represented the reverse as well: the Devils goalie-ing the other team. Just as a difference of 2 or more between expected and actual goals for represents the Devils getting goalied, a difference of 2 or more between expected and actual goals allowed represents the Devils goalies having a strong night. Both goalies can feel good about the November 3 game in St. Louis, the January 15 game in Boston, and the February 10 game in Carolina. As long as you ignore that the Devils lost the first two and lost the third in Carolina in overtime. And that the Devils were shutout in two of those games. Again: Getting goalied usually comes with a bad night. And bad results as the Devils went 1-8-1 over these ten games. The December 13 overtime win against Boston was a rare victory. And very close to another double-goalie-ing (forgive the pun, call it a goalie duel.
This is all well and good and surprisingly not that often for a playoff-less team? For a point of comparison, the Devils were goalied 12 times in the 2022-23 regular season and once int the postseason. I think what that means is that a team’s quality is not necessarily going to be defined by how often other goalies just have an excellent game against them. It also furthers the point that getting goalied is a thing that happens in the season. If it ends up happening around 10-12 times in 2024-25, then it may be worth accepting that those things happen. When it does, the Devils just have to grind out a result somehow and, more importantly, get them when they do not happen.
The 2023-24 Devils Getting Goalied
The 2023-24 Devils did not get great goaltending. You do not even need to see the numbers. Just know that the team started with Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid; they ended last season with Jake Allen and Kaapo Kahkonen; and General Manager Tom Fitzgerald bagged his big game by acquiring Jakob Markstrom with Vanecek and Schmid out of the organization. That said, the Devils goalies did have some strong nights.
Data source: Natural Stat Trick
Ten of them to be exact. Three of them were included in the previous list and the Devils went 0-2-1 in those games. In other seven times, the Devils went 5-1-1. No, not seven wins. They lost a 0-1 game to Philadelphia right by the end of the season and dropped a shootout in April to Nashville. By that point, the Devils were playing out the season so it did not matter much then. Still, the 5-3-2 record in these ten games speaks to a larger point. If your goalie is having a great night, then failing to win or get even a point hurts.
A bit of trivia: The March 24 win over the Islanders was the team’s only shutout of the season. Thank you, Kaapo Kahkonen. Easily his best night in his short time with New Jersey. It may be worth noting that half of the games on this list also came after March 8, 2024. Also known as the 2023-24 NHL Trade Deadline. Hindsight is always 20-20 and I know we cannot unspill spilled milk. Still, one has to wonder what the season would have become if Fitzgerald addressed goaltending far sooner than the trade deadline. Alas.
For what it is worth, the Devils goalied their opponents 11 times in the regular season and twice in the playoffs. The latter thanks to Akira Schmid in Games 3 and 5 of that series. Game 7 just missed the cut-off. Similar to the Devils getting goalied, it is not unreasonable to expect the Devils’ goalies to have some exceptional nights here and there. What was missing last season were the performances between those nights. And the team results to consistently go along with them.
The 2023-24 Devils Goalies Getting Lit up
Since the Devils goaltenders were not so good over the 2023-24 season, then does that mean they got lit up? Or, did they concede more than a difference of +2 between goals allowed and expected goals allowed? It did happen several times in 2023-24.
Data source: Natural Stat Trick
Thirteen times to be exact. The italicized game is the 6-5 goal-fest against Las Vegas from January 22. Both teams had their goalies lit up by this standard. It was also a rare Devils win on this list of thirteen games as they went 1-12-0 among these games. Two out of twenty-six points. There are some repeats from the Devils Getting Goalied list: the terrible loss to Our Hated Rivals in February. A similarly bad loss to Washington in February. That enraging loss to San Jose. There are some other infamous nights on this kind of list. Just to name a few: That horrendous loss to Washington in October that ended up being a sign of things to come for the 2023-24 season. That absolutely flat pre-Thanksgiving loss to Detroit. And, of course, The Brylin Night Debacle (and I’m not going to blame Nico Daws for that one.) These games caused various amounts of pain at the time they happened. Depending on how much you were invested, it may sting a bit just to recall some of them. I know it did for me.
Is this a lot, though? It was certainly more than last season, where it happened 8 times in the regular season and twice in the playoffs. That is a total of 10 – which is not too far off from 13. While we hope it does not happen that much in 2024-25, it does stand to reason to expect it to happen a few times. Everyone has bad games. When the goalie is struggling, then it often going to be a rough night for the team. Again, the key is to get the results when that does not happen. On top of managing goaltenders such that their confidence or their energy does not get grounded out.
The 2023-24 Devils Lighting Up Opposition Goalies
Let me end this with something positive: the Devils lighting up the opponents’ goalies. As much as they have had bad nights with their own goaltenders, the Devils absolutely forced their opponents to suffer crummy evenings in the crease.
Data source: Natural Stat Trick
The Devils out performed their own expected goals by two in 12 games last season. They won 11 of them. The exception was the January 6 loss to Vancouver, where the Canucks dug a big hole for the Devils and the Devils tried to dig their way up and out of it. They fell short but it was an attempt. The other 11 games clearly went much better.
Some were out-and-out goalfests by both sides like the January 22 game against Las Vegas, the October 20 overtime win over the Islanders, the win over Vancouver in December (not sure why it’s a 4 in the GA column), and the April 11 win in Toronto that exposed Toronto’s goaltending. Others were your classic beatdowns and routs, such as the Black Friday win over Buffalo, stunning Dallas 6-2 after Allen got beat early (and Allen goalied the Stars), a revenge win over Washington, and a late March win over Toronto that may have exposed their goaltending as well. Good times even amid a disappointment of a season.
How often did the far more successful 2022-23 Devils light up opposition goaltenders? Not as much. They only did it 9 times in the regular season and once in the playoffs (yes, the one 8-4 win against Carolina). Does this mean the 2023-24 Devils were some how better on offense? No, not necessarily. Again, the larger point is that just as the Devils and their opponents goalies can have great nights to frustrate the others, the goalies can just get lit up and/or let down in a game featuring loads of goals.
Final Thoughts
For what it is worth, 36 separate games fit into one of the four categories described in this post. There were multiple games that fit into more than one. I find that alone to be fascinating. Roughly 44% of last season featured the Devils getting goalied, the Devils goalie-ing the other team, the Devils goalies getting lit up, and/or the opposition’s goalies getting lit up by the Devils. That is a rather significant chunk of the season where, depending on what happened, the results tended to swing towards what you would expect from a goalie having a great game.
What does this mean for next season, the one where I really believe the Devils have to make the playoffs? It means that as much as we want the Devils to win more often, there will be nights where it just is not going to happen. Just as there will be nights to just “burn the tape” afterward, there will be nights where the other goalie is just on fire and the Devils have to make like Hilary Duff and learn how to deal. It would be great if the Devils could make the bad things happen less often and the good things more often. It would be even better if the Devils earned better results when their goalies are playing exceptionally well and earn better results when they play the other 56% of the season where these swings are not happening. And if they can figure out dragging more of those rougher nights beyond regulation to get a point here and there, then all the better.
And for me, and hopefully you, we just accept that getting goalied will happen. As much as I, and probably you, do not like it. Especially as it is happening. Thank you for reading.