Two seasons ago, Siegenthaler had a heck of a year with the Devils and was looking like he could be a top 4, shutdown defenseman for years to come. Last year, however, he regressed big time. This year, he is back on track. What a rollercoaster ride.
What a ride the last three seasons have been for the New Jersey Devils and Jonas Siegenthaler. Two seasons ago, during the great season that led to a solid playoff run, Siegenthaler was a stalwart on the blueline, someone the team relied on to play solid defense, kill penalty minutes, and prevent solid attempts against while getting the puck up ice. He was never expected to be an offensive force, but he even chipped in his fair share of points for a guy who was brought in to be a defensive defenseman. After that season, Devils fans reaped praise on him and his game, and rightly so. Much was expected of him in terms of helping to lead this defense last season.
Then, last season came, and it felt like all of the progress we saw the year prior disappeared. He looked sluggish, made poor choices on defense, leading the opposition to have clear attempts on net, and really just took a step back overall in terms of his game. It was disconcerting to see, and it affected the team’s plans moving forward. How to address the defense changes pretty dramatically whether Siegs is a top 4, shutdown defenseman or a third pairing guy. And we all knew that this season, coming in, was going to be a big one in terms of where Siegenthaler would end up and what would be his projection in the intermediate and long term.
Well, so far, he has really come back strong, looking much more like we saw him two years ago versus last season. We all hope that last season was simply a blip on the radar, one step backward before moving forward once again, and it seems like that could be the case. Here are some of his numbers thanks to Natural Stat Trick:
As you can see, the middle 3 stats in that chart really showcase the dip last year versus this year and two years ago. His overall Corsi numbers were relatively similar throughout, but his high danger Corsi, his Goals For, and his expected Goals For all dipped last year, and fairly significantly at that. The big ones, of course, are the GF% and xG%, which show how his play on the ice directly affected goals being scored for and against the Devils. This season, as well as two years ago, NJ has been distinctly positive in this regard. They are scoring more when he is out there versus being scored against, around 5.5 goals for, to only 4.5 against out of 10. But last year it was the reverse, and more so, with 4.3 goals for versus 5.7 against. That is a massive difference.
I also find it interesting that this year, his offensive zone faceoff percentage is quite different from the previous two years. In those seasons, he hovered just above a 50% OZFO%, not really sheltered but not exactly expected to always play from the defensive zone either. This year, however, they are throwing him out there for way more defensive zone draws. At just under 40% OZFO%, he is not getting many opportunities in the offensive zone. This is fine, as he is not an offensive guy, but having so many more defensive zone draws ups the likelihood of goals against. Yet his numbers are really good this season, showing that despite the tougher zone starts, he is playing better and preventing goals against at a good rate.
It is also interesting to see who he was paired with in the last three seasons. It is lazy and easy to just blame a year of struggles on a bad pairing, but it would be wrong to ignore it altogether. So, let’s see who he’s played with:
So for 2023-24, the guy he played with the most was Simon Nemec, but they were only together for a little under 400 5v5 minutes. For a full season, that is not terribly high. As you can see, he played on a pairing with Dougie Hamilton for over a thousand minutes in 2022-23, and has been with Jonathan Kovacevic for almost 750 minutes already this season. So right off the bat, you can see that last year was different in that he was with different players on his pairing throughout the season instead of just one consistent guy. That can matter as it prevents a level of cohesion and compatibility that develops after playing with someone for a while.
Overall, however, you can still see that it was not all on his pairing mate last season. Before Dougie got hurt last year, they played a little over 250 minutes together, and their expected goals percentage when together was over 7% worse than the year prior. Something was not working, even among a pairing that had played together for a ton of time. However, this year with Kovacevic, he is right back to playing well, and their xG% is even better this year than it was with Hamilton two years ago. That is quite impressive and shows a real turnaround after the down season.
It will be interesting to see how things play out moving forward. I have no doubt that he will continue to have a good season. As it has played out, when he is having a good season, that does not suddenly change. He and Kovacevic should continue to make a strong pairing for the Devils now and through whatever playoff games they get to play. But next year, who knows? Will he regress back to what he was last year, or will he continue to grow into the top 4 defensive defenseman the Devils want him to become? Only time will tell.