The Devils were expected to be a very good team coming into this season, with a strong, young roster. But through 10 games, the 5 on 5 numbers show that they have been a remarkably mediocre team.
So before I dive into this, just note that I had to write this up before last night’s game against the Isles, so the numbers might be slightly different now than yesterday when I was writing this. Nonetheless, with the New Jersey Devils just losing a game against Detroit that looked very, very similar to last season, where the Devils dominated the game but got atrocious goaltending and lost as a result, it is easy to think that the Devils are playing strong hockey but have peripheral issues. And they played excellently Thursday night, with a killer Corsi over 61% and an xGF at nearly 71%. No team should be losing a game with a 71% xGF%, but the Devils managed that thanks to Jacob Markstrom letting in some soft goals.
However, the Detroit game was only the second out of the first 10 where the Devils really controlled the run of play and tilted the ice strongly against their opponent. The other game they were able to do so was game 2 against Buffalo back in Czechia. In the other 8, the story was quite different, and they all basically show the Devils as a mediocre team so far this year. They managed a positive expected goals percentage in only one other game, the home overtime loss against Washington where they ended with a 50.21 xGF%. Otherwise? They’ve been in the 40s in the other 7 games they’ve played, and it all equates to a dead even 50.03 xGF% through their first ten games, ranking them 15th in the NHL.
But the rest of the team stats also show mediocre performance as well. Just look at this team chart of stats through the first 10 games of the season, thanks to Natural Stat Trick. All stats here at 5 on 5 and taken before last night’s games:
As you can see, this is the definition of a mediocre team. If you looked at these numbers through 10 games for any team without knowing who it was, you would say they are a middle-of-the-road club, probably hovering somewhere around .500, with special teams play dictating whether they would be a little better or worse than that. And that is about right: through 10 games, they are 5-4-1, just slightly above .500 thanks to an overtime point against Washington. And while it is easy to think they should be better than that, the roster says they should be better and some poor goaltending performances recently really make you think that as well, their team stats at 5 on 5 tell us that this is who they are. Of course, 10 games isn’t a huge sample size to define a team, and they have plenty of time to improve and play like the roster says they should be playing. But these stats sadly tell us that the 5-2 start they had was ripe for some negative regression, and that was what happened the next three games.
If they want to become the team we expect and hope they can be, they will need to play better at 5 on 5 moving forward. How they performed against Detroit in this setting is a great example of what they are capable of and what they need to do if they want to really compete in this league. Yes, they lost that game, but we are discussing 5 on 5 skating performance, not terrible goaltending play. If they can play more games like that, they will be better than mediocre this season. In fact, they could be quite good. But if this trend of very average 5 on 5 play continues this season, expect more mediocre results, as that is what they have been playing like, so why expect different results?