The Devils are doing well so far, but if they want to take things to the next level, there are areas to improve. One of those is their play in the high danger areas.
22 games in, and the New Jersey Devils are in a solid position. As John noted yesterday, they have a games played disadvantage, which skews the standings to some degree. Regardless, they are certainly a top-four team in the Metropolitan Division, at the worst, and that is a good position to be in as we push towards the end of November.
That being said, there obviously is room for improvement as well. Winning 13 out of 22 games is good, and gaining points in 15 out of 22 is even better, but their 7 losses speak to an imperfect team that will need to improve if it wants to play well beyond 82 games this season. One area that could use some improvement would be their performance in the high danger areas. While they have not been a bad team in high danger by any means, they have basically been mediocre, middle of the road. That can work when combined with strong play elsewhere, and it has led to a solid record so far. But when we are talking about beating the best of the best regularly, like Carolina the other night, this is an area that should be marked for improvement.
First, here are the team stats for 5 on 5 high danger Corsi and 5 on 5 high danger goals, thanks to Natural Stat Trick:
As you can see from the overall team stats, they are just decidedly mediocre all around in high danger. They are slightly better when it comes to high danger attempts, especially in preventing attempts against, as allowing only 10.26 high danger attempts against is 7th in the league, solid. But everything else is middle of the pack, especially their high danger goals numbers, both for and against. And allowing more goals against per 60 compared to what they score is really not good, and it will be a disaster if that holds true come playoff time.
These numbers really speak to a need to generate more attempts and goals in high danger on offense, more so than it speaks to a need for better high danger defense. Yes, they could use some better high danger defense as their goals against per 60 is not great. But they are very good at preventing attempts against, so that just means a high percentage of attempts against are leading to goals. That should not be sustainable unless high danger goaltending is a true issue. So as long as they continue to suppress high danger attempts against, that HDGA/60 number should improve. But offense, on the other hand, is something that needs improvement all around. Ranking only 16th in attempts for is not great, and it makes sense why they are only tied for 17th in goals for. The offense really needs to figure out a way to generate more attempts from the slot.
Now, check out high danger numbers for the top 6 forwards on the team in terms of time on ice, again thanks to Natural Stat Trick. Rank is against all forwards with at least 100 minutes of 5 on 5 action.
Much like with the team stats, you can see the mediocrity here, but it’s even more personal now. These are the top 6 forwards in terms of time on ice at 5 on 5 for the Devils so far. Only one is consistently good in both high danger attempts and high danger goals, and that is Timo Meier. He is the only one in the top 100 in both categories, out of 393 total forwards who made the list. Everyone else is basically average. Nico has very good high danger Corsi numbers, the best on the team, but it does not translate to >60% high danger goals, so it hasn’t really translated where it counts. Everyone else is fairly mediocre all around, all the way down to Jesper Bratt, who actually has a high danger Corsi below 50%.
Now overall, all those listed still have an HDGF% at or above 50%, so things are not horrible. I am not trying to say this is a huge area of need to immediately improve. They are not downright bad at high danger hockey. They are simply mediocre, middle-of-the-road, average. And if they want to win beyond 82 games, they will most likely need to be better than that. High danger is very important, it is the area where goals are the easiest to come by, and the easiest to give up on the other end. If they improve in this area, no doubt they will win more games.