- Dec 20, 2018
- 21,976
- 47,748
These guys are here to fill specific gaps. This is going to get pretty detailed about the Devils forward defensive needs so jump ship if you understandably don’t care but people aren’t being realistic about what motivates moves like this.
The team isn’t expecting these guys to suddenly start producing a lot more offensively. It’s not based on hope of future improvement, it’s based on them performing exactly as expected in a reliable manner right now. That’s what you want from vet depth.
The Devils lost two centers (Zajac, Maltsev) and three other forwards (Palmieri, Bastian, Merkley).
They signed one forward to a one-way deal this off-season (Tatar).
The forwards that they lost were 1st (Zajac 2:22), 5th (Bastian 1:14) and 6th (Palmieri) in PK TOI.
So the only remaining guys who played a really role on the PK from last year are:
Sharangovich: 1:46 (who was a rookie)
Nico 1:35 (this was his first season playing big minutes on the PK & he only played 21 games due to injury)
McLeod 1:33 (his first year PKing in the NHL)
Zacha 1:20 (less minutes & less success without a stable partner)
Oh yeah, our PK was the worst in the league.
It was a Lovecraftian horror show with a 71% “success” rate (73% Net PK%) that managed to give up 45 PP goals Against in 148 Power Play Opportunities in 56 games.
The Devils gave up a total of 189 GA, with 45 being PP GA. Our PK murdered us and the only reason our bodies weren’t mutilated in a more horrific manner was because we were the 28th most penalized team in the NHL.
To step back a bit, Ruff made some changes to the PK that seem dicey and the team had zero full practice days to fix issues but it was mainly personnel losses that fueled the decline of what was formally a team strength.
The Devils’ PK had always been reliable because the always reliable Zajac and Greene were the backbone of it. The pairing of Zajac/Coleman and Zacha/Rooney were very strong. And I’m going to going to give a shout out to Lovejoy, who was our best PK guy for three years. Pour one out for Ben.
Well, all these guys except for Zacha are gone and Zacha’s strengths at PK are more from his physiology, agility and reach than brain power. (Just saying, not a ton of hockey sense.)
And back to the PTOs. What is the one thing Vesey has historically been good at in the NHL? The PK. And he does not take penalties. It’s not sexy, it’s not particularly valuable to everyone but I’m guessing Ruff would like a guy who can, without doubt, play the PK well as a depth forward.
And Jankowski is a terrifying offensive blackhole but he’s also helpful in the exact same area.
He also fills another huge hole at bottom six center depth that was created by the loss of Zajac and Maltsev.
The Devils don’t actually have much in terms spare random forwards for the press box. We only have one Tweener with NHL potential who is not waiver exempt, Studenic, the rest of the prospects can come and go from Utica. As I said, we lost five forwards and added one.
The only competition for the spare forward spots these guys have is perhaps the waiver wire, our flexibility from having prospects who all come and go means we can always poach an interesting dude. I still think think these two are basically locks assuming they perform well.
