The Devils are playing some strong hockey right now, even if they get goalied from time to time. They are playing so well that they are entering outlier territory.
As we roll headlong toward the winter break, the New Jersey Devils are playing some strong hockey. Of course, they seem to get goalied now and then, a very frustrating occurrence, but nonetheless, the team is playing well and is in a strong position at this time of the year.
In fact, they are playing so well in terms of underlying metrics that they are starting to enter Carolina territory in some ways in terms of being an outlier team. When you look at expected goals and Corsi, specifically shot attempts for as opposed to overall Corsi, the Devils are moving farther and farther away from the mean. The easiest way to see this is in a couple of graphs from MoneyPuck. The first one to look at is the expected goals graph, which pops up automatically when you click that link. Here is the chart:
For most of the season, the outlier team was, and usually is, Carolina. They tend to skew the graph in one direction and bunch the others up on the other side. And while the Canes are still playing really well, they are not the ultimate outlier right now. The Devils are. In all situations, they are averaging 3.81 expected goals for per 60 minutes and only 2.68 expected goals against. They are the farthest team to the bottom right of the graph, exactly where you want to be. Yes, Anaheim might be skewing the graph more in the opposite direction, but in terms of good teams, it’s really NJ and LA, but you want to be where NJ is right now.
But that’s not the only graph to show how much of an outlier they are. Check it out when you combine expected goals and shot attempts for in the same graph, again from MoneyPuck:
Now obviously for this one, Carolina is still the ultimate outlier, I mean just look how ridiculous it looks with them skewing the graph as much as they do. But they are just that far and away when it comes to Corsi For specifically. They shoot first and think second, and it shows.
The Devils, meanwhile, are second when it comes to shot attempts for, and the best when it comes to expected goals for as we saw on the previous graph. Put it together, and they are the farthest away from the mean line of the graph. You can basically chart a line of y=x and it would cover almost all of the teams in the NHL. It even hits Carolina on the top end. But the Devils would be the furthest away from the y=x line. Washington would be the other team to be away from the line, but not as far as NJ. They are a major outlier on this graph, and again, this isn’t typical. It might be for the Canes, but not the Devils.
This really is good news. They might get goalied at times, but overall, they are putting up strong performances night in and night out, and they are going to win more than they lose that way. They have a strong team with strong fundamentals, and they should be a team to be reckoned with for the rest of the regular season and hopefully beyond. Yes, these things might change. There is still over half the season left, and they could regress towards the mean in these graphs. But if they remain as an outlier like they are right now, they will win a bunch. And that is exactly what we want to see.