Akira Schmid was the MVP of the series against New York two years ago, and the Devils will need some good goaltending this time around from Jakob Markstrom to win.
Playoff hockey is back in the Garden State for the first time in two years! That feels like such a short time considering the massive drought the New Jersey Devils were mostly in from 2012-2022, with only one playoff berth in that timeframe. It feels good to have a team to root for that can once again consistently make the playoffs and do some damage. This used to be the norm for this franchise when I was growing up, but that seems like a different lifetime at this point. Let’s hope playoff consistency becomes a thing once again for this franchise.
As we get ready to start this series between the Devils and Canes, I wanted to go back and look at how the Devils won their last playoff series, the round 1 victory against the Rags in 7 games. Yes, they then immediately lost to the same Canes in the second round, but if they are going to win this time around, they are going to need to replicate some of the successes they had against New York in the first round two years ago. It won’t all be the same, NJ does not have another random rookie goaltender who will get hot at the right time in Akira Schmid. It will have to be veteran goaltending success this time around. Nonetheless, they will need to produce some strong stats and strong showings to beat a strong Canes team.
Let’s check out some of the numbers from that NJ-NY series from two years ago, thanks to Natural Stat Trick (save percentage and PDO are at all strengths, the rest at 5 on 5):
So, despite this series going 7 games and giving us all grey hairs before the celebration that was game 7 and the series win, it was actually a strong performance all around from the team. They got really bad goaltending in the three losses, but otherwise played six really strong games. The only game that they truly got beat by NY all around was in game 2. Yes, they had better possession that game to the tune of 56.25%, but they were crushed in expected goals, had terrible high danger numbers, and this was on top of the poor goaltending. It was the one game they deserved to lose, and rightly did.
In the other 6 games, the Devils were arguably the stronger team on the ice. They had better expected goals numbers in those 6 other games, and in many, they dominated in this stat, only games 5 and 6 being relatively close, but only relative to games 1, 3, 4, and 7. The only game they had worse possession numbers was in the game 5 shutout, and that was because they had such a big lead that they could afford to play much more defensively for a lot of that game. The high danger numbers were largely in the Devils’ favor all series, except for the aforementioned game 2. They actually crushed it in this stat in most of the other games, the sole exception being game 6, where it was an even 50%. Having two games with a high danger Corsi number at or above 75% is truly remarkable.
The real key to this series though, as you all know, was the goaltending. Once Schmid took over between the pipes for Vitek Vanecek, the entire series changed. Vanecek was terrible in the first two games, completely overwhelmed by NY. But Schmid, with only minimal NHL experience to that point, was up to the challenge. Just look at his save percentage numbers for games 3 through 7. In only game 6 did he do poorly; in the four wins, he was not just decent, he was dynamite. Posting two shutouts in that series was truly something else, and I will always be an Akira Schmid fan thanks to this series alone.
So, what does this tell us about the series coming up? The biggest takeaway is that the Devils will need good goaltending to win. This is actually one area that they can be better at when compared to the Canes. Carolina always puts up incredibly strong analytics, and they will likely wipe the floor with NJ in most games in Corsi, expected goals, and the like. But with save percentage and goaltending, the Devils can have an advantage here if Jakob Markstrom can step up and make his acquisition worth it. It doesn’t matter how poorly or underwhelming he played in the regular season. If he steps up now and puts up some dominant performances in the playoffs, it will all be worth it.
Beyond that, however, the Devils will need to minimize Carolina’s strengths. As I just mentioned, Carolina excels at tilting the ice against their opposition. Their Corsi stats are always very high, and they love to pepper shot attempts whenever possible. This leads to a lot of defensive zone time for their opposition, and the Devils will find times where they are stuck in their own zone. If they can minimize these times, however, and keep the ice from being tilted so strongly against them, when combined with good goaltending, it could give them the chance they need to win. If they can find some games like games 3, 4, and 7 against NY from two seasons ago, with some great team hockey and great goaltending, good things can and will happen.
All-in-all, it will be a fun series to watch. The Canes are a good team, but they are not flawless. If the Devils can hit on their strengths and put up some good numbers like they did two years ago in the first round, they can win this thing. Let’s go Devils!