Apparently, the biggest injury to strike the 2024-25 New Jersey Devils may be the one to Jonas Siegenthaler. Since February 4, the Devils’ defense has been awful. This post shows the numbers and offers some suggestions to fix some of this before the playoffs.
Since the injuries to The Big Deal and Dougie Hamilton, there has been much made about how the New Jersey Devils need to dig in, grind for results, and focus more on defense.
This makes some sense. The Devils did have strong on-ice rates that one would associate with defense for most of this season. Sheldon Keefe was brought in to keep the Devils from rushing up and there has been more patience (in theory and usually in practice) in their own end with the puck for zone exits. The team was intentionally made to be more defensive in addition to being “tougher” from this past offseason. And, thanks to Person Who Matters HughesYourDaddy, even the PDOCast has commented on how the Devils have been more focused on being better defensively than they have been on offense.
However, the results on the ice aren’t matching with these narratives and arguments. Regardless the record, this team has been Bad at defense recently. Really bad, in fact. Whether you want to judge good defense as limiting shot attempts (Corsi), shots on net, or just high danger chances, it has been Bad for the Devils. And it’s been one since one crucial injury: The Jonas Siegenthaler injury.
Yes, that one. Since February 4, the night he was hurt in the Pittsburgh game, New Jersey’s numbers have went in the wrong direction at both ends of the ice in 5 on 5 play, the most common situation in hockey. And not just slightly wrong, very wrong. It was thought that Brian Dumoulin was acquired in part to salvage the loss of Siegenthaler. Again, the results on the ice are not backing that up either. Here’s a breakdown of the numbers from Natural Stat Trick. No, they do not include last night’s meltdown loss to Calgary. Although it is another example of how bad it has been getting for New Jersey.
First, for shot attempts (Corsi) divided up by danger. So if you prefer high-danger over all else, you have that.
Natural Stat Trick
This is bad! Up until the Siegenthaler injury, the Devils were on the right side of the league when it came to allowing attempts. Since that injury, they have been one of the worst. They are in the bottom ten of the league outside of medium danger chances allowed, which was just barely ahead of 23rd place. The Devils have conceded more than 4 more attempts per 60 minutes total, which is plenty of additional time spent in their own end. They have conceded about 2-3 more low-danger attempts per 60, 1 more medium danger attempt per 60, and 2-3 more high-danger attempts per 60. That is evidence of not good defending. If you care about the apparent fill-in that is Brian Dumoulin, the evidence is showing here that he is not really helping the cause. I know, it is not all on him. But he is not helping.
But that is just attempts. What about the attempts that get on (or in) the net? The ones that make Jake Allen and Jacob Markstrom to make some saves? Here is the same breakdown but for shots on net.
Natural Stat Trick
It is not any better! The Devils are giving up now over 30 shots per 60 minutes since the Trade Deadline and they were creeping close to that after Siegenthaler got hurt. Before the injury, they were a top-five team in SA/60! Top five! Not including last night’s games, they were next to last since March 7! More high-danger shots allowed, more medium danger shots allowed (perhaps the opponents are more accurate?), and more low-danger shots allowed. The defense has been getting gashed since #71 left the game early in Pittsburgh. With and without Dumoulin.
What I am still struggling to figure out is whether the lack of offense is helping or hurting this. It is easy to say, “Well, without Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton, your offense will suffer and so you will defend more.” The problem is that the offense took a nose dive since the Siegenthaler injury and that included games with The Big Deal and Hamilton on the ice.
Outside of medium danger shots, the Devils have cratered into the bottom-ten of the NHL for attempts and shots. They were not exactly a prolific low-danger shooting team, but that got worse. The high-danger chances have went down big time. Even though the medium-danger shot rates may still rank well, they have fallen off since the injury to Siegenthaler. The Devils have been worse without Siegenthaler – and even in the brief time with The Big Deal and Hischier together. (Also, not that anyone was really making this asinine point, but having Jack Hughes out has not helped the other Devils play better on offense either.)
It sounds weird to point to a purely defensive defenseman having a fantastic defensive season for a point of where it all went wrong. But the data points to this. While Siegenthaler may not have contributed much to the Devils directly on offense, being able to get stops and kill plays opens up shifts for others to attack. This is hockey. If you’re not attacking, you’re on defense. If you’re not on defense, you’re attacking. The Devils have been doing a lot of the former before Siegenthaler’s injury – disappointing as January was, it was not nearly as awful as February or what we have seen since in March. Since the Siegenthaler injury, it has all went down for the Devils. Acquisitions like Cody Glass, Dumoulin, and deferring salary to Trent Frederic have not stemmed the bleeding.
Sure, the Devils have had some offensive explosions such as a 5-0 win over Nashville or a 5-3 win over Columbus, but they have also had some absolutely miserable losses or wins carried on the back of Jake Allen playing out of his mind. I understand that the population sizes are different, but such is life. There isn’t another 30-40 games for the Devils to play for us to analyze as to whether the team would figure things out. Which is a problem in of itself. The playoffs are looming and a team built to be older and more defensive is struggling with handling third periods either with (see last night’s loss or Monday’s win in Columbus) or without a lead (see the loss in Pittsburgh last Saturday or last Thursday’s win over Edmonton). No, letting the goaltender bail the team out over and over is not “handling a period.” If anything, that’s soft. Which is mystifying when you consider how experienced this team is; something Soft Tom Fitzgerald added to the team with Dumoulin by the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline.
What this all means means is that the New Jersey Devils defense has been really bad since Siegenthaler got hurt. The data shows that. Some recent ugly performances help supplant that. No surprise but to the most most ardent cheerleader of the status quo or someone who believes in the MSG broadcast team for analysis. And they are not reading this site anyway. And if you are, forgive me, but it has been that bad. It is OK to admit it. The world will not end if you do.
So what can the Devils do about it now?
The bad news is that with 12 games left in the season and a playoff matchup with Carolina looming in the distance, the Devils really do not have the time to work out and implement a whole new system of playing defense. The good news is that there are adjustments the coaching staff can, and I think, should make fairly quickly.
First, the pairings have to change. Since the trade deadline, head coach Sheldon Keefe finally decided (or was forced by injury) to be more adventurous with the forward lines. With some mixed success, too. The defensive pairings have been mostly the same save for Simon Nemec drawing back in for Dennis Cholowski after Cholowski demonstrated his snail-like pace for this level of hockey. It has been Brett Pesce-Luke Hughes, Brian Dumoulin-Jonathan Kovacevic, and Brenden Dillon-Simon Nemec for recent games. This needs to be broken up because this is not working well.
As far as what should be tried, it could be anything at this point. The next 12 games need to be about figuring out who can work well with who and running with it until they cannot or someone has a miserable game. Like Kovacevic. His performance in Columbus alone should have forced a change with his pairing. His primary assist on Jonathan Huberdeau’s game winning goal should do it for tomorrow.
Second, the forward lines need to get the message that they need to be more active down low. This team is not doing rush offense, yet wingers are flashing out of the zone expecting some kind of lead pass if there is an early stop. Forward three coming into the zone is not able or unaware of who to pick up upon reading the situation. There is a lot looseness from the forwards that only make the defensemen’s issues even worse. There has to be an emphasis from the coaching staff to plant someone – anyone – in the slot to do more than just wait to clean up a puck.
Third, tie up, tie up, tie up. For a team filled with experienced players and apparent toughness, where are the sticks being tied up? Where are the stick lifts? Where is the necessary obstruction in dangerous areas? I am not asking the Devils to hook and hold like it is 1995. I am asking for perfectly legal plays on sticks that keep opponents from getting free shots. Entirely doable and something I would expect from the likes of Dillon, Pesce, and so forth.
Fourth, stop selling out for blocks! While the data in this post did not include last night’s game, allow me to reference one of the killer goals against in last night’s meltdown: The game-tying goal. Daniil Miromanov was sprung in a give-and-go by Blake Coleman that eluded Cody Glass. Brian Dumoulin knew well enough to break from Yegor Sharangovich. Only to get down on one knee to defend a passing lane that was not actually there. Had he remained standing, he could have stick checked, he could have moved in on Miromanov, he could have done something other than just be a pylon for the goal scorer to shoot around. This is an example but Devils defenders selling out for blocks rarely get the results they aim for. This needs to be coached out of them as soon as they can.
Fifth, most of all, you still need to attack. What did I write earlier? If you’re not attacking, then you’re defending. The Devils have been caved in big time in third periods in most of their last four games. It burned them last night against Calgary and it could have been the same in Columbus and against Edmonton. The Devils absolutely need to maintain an offense regardless of the score situation to help out their defense. If all of the team is doing is chipping it out or dumping-and-changing, then the coaching staff has to change a matchup, adjust a line, or give some kind of different instruction. All that does is continue to invite the other team to attack and as they keep firing away, they may get those goals to get back into games or pull games away. Not to mention how much pressure it puts on the defensemen and especially the goaltender. This means the team needs more than a rare possession shift from Cody Glass in the third period. They need something balanced. If they are not getting it, then they need to make in-game adjustments until they do. What Keefe did against Edmonton was like that – until they just stopped after the lead. Of all of the points, this is the most important in my mind.
Look, Jonas Siegenthaler, Jack Hughes, and Dougie Hamilton are not coming off the bench anytime soon for the Devils. It would be great if they did and it would be really interesting if their play would flip the script with these on-ice rates. Whether you have faith in the roster remaining on the Devils or not is beside the point. There are 12 games left to be played and then the playoffs. Even if all five of my suggestions are terrible, Sheldon Keefe and his staff has to do something to fix the team’s defensive struggles. Otherwise, the Devils’ against rates will remain in the bottom ten. More importantly, they will likely blow more games like they did last night as opposed to winning them.
The 2024-25 New Jersey Devils surely miss Jonas Siegenthaler and so do I. Thank you for reading.