The New Jersey Devils have suffered a pretty rough stretch of injuries to begin the 2025-26 season. It started on opening night, with Evgenii Dadonov fracturing his hand in Carolina. From there, we’ve seen Jacob Markstrom, Zack MacEwen, and Cody Glass go down with significant injuries of their own. And none of this counts Johnny Kovacevic (still out) and Stefan Noesen (since returned) who were injured to begin the campaign. A year after suffering some really bad injury luck, there has been no regression to the mean in that department.
And now, the Devils have suffered their most significant injury yet.
Brett Pesce took a high stick from Martin “Compulsive Diver” Necas in the first period of Sunday’s win over the Colorado Avalanche. He also took a shot to what appeared to be his hand from Brent Burns later in the opening frame. It’s unclear which of these plays injured Pesce, but either way, he missed the final 40 minutes of regulation and overtime, and it was revealed after the game that he suffered an “upper-body” injury and will not travel with the Devils on their upcoming four-game road trip.
This really hurts, as Pesce has arguably been the Devils’ best defenseman to begin the campaign. Through eight games (though really seven-and-one-third) he has collected three points (all assists), and all of his underlying numbers look incredible. According to Natural Stat Trick, at 5-on-5, Pesce has been one of the most effective players on the team:
Corsi For%: 55.56 (third-best on the team)
Shots For%: 58.68 (first)
Scoring Chances For%: 58.06 (first)
High Danger Corsi For%: 55.93 (fifth)
Expected Goals For%: 53.31 (third)
If Natural Stat Trick isn’t your cup of tea, Hockey Stat Cards has Pesce tabbed as the sixth-most valuable Devil overall, the most valuable defenseman, and the skater with by FAR the highest defensive rating on the club. Simply put, Pesce is dominating, and has been perhaps the biggest reason why New Jersey is currently on an eight-game winning streak. At this point we’re not sure how long he’ll be out. We do know that Seamus Casey will be Pesce’s replacement on the roster, and while I have high hopes for him, there is almost no shot he can replace the value Pesce was bringing through the early part of the schedule. So if Pesce will be out for a bit, and Casey can’t fill the void, how can New Jersey cover Pesce’s absence until he returns?
That’s where Jonas Siegenthaler comes in.
Siegenthaler’s Under The Radar Struggles
Perhaps this is just a perception issue on my part, but I do feel as though not enough Devils fans are acknowledging the fact that Siegenthaler does not look like himself early on. I do understand that it’s hard to be negative when the team is currently riding an eight-game heater and has the most points AND the highest points percentage in the NHL. Still, I’m starting to get a little concerned with Siegenthaler’s game. Per Natural Stat Trick, Siegenthaler has been getting absolutely run over night in and night out at 5-on-5:
CF%: 48.63 (13th on the Devils)
SF%: 50.00 (16th)
SCF%: 41.54 (15th)
HDCF%: 40.35 (16th)
xGF%: 39.41 (16th)
At Hockey Stat Cards, Siegenthaler is already deep underwater with a -1.5 Net Rating. That is the worst mark on the team among defensemen, and ahead of only the usual fourth line of Luke Glendening, Brian Halonen, and Paul Cotter overall.
Perhaps more alarmingly, Siegenthaler’s defensive game has really slipped.
We all know Siegenthaler has never brought much offense to the table (his one point in nine games played this year being more proof of that). So he has had to rely on his defensive chops to supply value, and in years past he has brought tons and tons of defensive value to the table. After a down 2023-24, Siegenthaler teamed with Johnny Kovacevic to form one of the best shutdown pairs in the NHL. Siegenthaler was one of the very best defensive defensemen in the league according to numerous analytics models, which was even more impressive considering Siegenthaler was tasked with shutting down opponents’ top lines every night. If there was one thing New Jersey could rely on last year, it was Siegenthaler stopping opposing teams in their tracks.
Which makes his defensive numbers this season so disappointing and concerning. I already gave you his overall 5-on-5 numbers from Natural Stat Trick, but if we look at defense-specific metrics, the results become even more dire:
Corsi Against per 60: 61.11 (13th on the team)
Shots Against per 60: 22.82 (seventh)
Scoring Chances Against per 60: 30.96 (14th)
High Danger Corsi Against per 60: 13.85 (15th)
Expected Goals Against per 60: 3.35 (18th)
These are out of 18 skaters by the way (I filtered out players with fewer than 50 minutes played, so no Dadonov, MacEwen, or Noesen). So that means his xGA/60 ranking of 18th puts him dead last on the team. When your shutdown ace is the worst you have at preventing expected goals, you have a serious problem.
Hockey Stat Cards is a little more complimentary to Siegenthaler, but not by much. That model has his defensive rating at +0.1, just narrowly in the black. But that’s still ahead of only Simon Nemec and tied with Brenden Dillon for the second-worst mark in that category on the team among defensemen. Still, even though the raw value is positive, that modest +0.1 valuation only puts him in the 43rd percentile among defensemen league-wide. Not at all where you want a player like Siegenthaler to be.
Perhaps these numbers don’t jive with your eye test, but I will tell you that they do jive with mine. I feel as though Siegenthaler has been really fighting it early on this season. His puck-handling has never been amazing, but I’ve seen him fumble pucks and whiff on clearing attempts more often than usual through nine games. He isn’t as quick or decisive as he usually is, and he isn’t as imposing physically. I will say that I have noticed Siegenthaler making great defensive plays on occasion, such as perfectly-timed slides to break up passes or excellent shot blocks to save dangerous attempts at the net. That being said, if he is constantly putting himself in a position to have to make great defensive plays just to keep himself afloat, that might be indicative of a larger issue.
Siegenthaler’s slump hasn’t really been all that much of a problem thus far considering New Jersey is 8-1-0. But now that Pesce is on the shelf for a while, the Devils could really use a return to form from Siegenthaler. And if he can’t step up, New Jersey might see it’s sparkling record fall back to the pack in a hurry. Something needs to be done.
Potential Solutions
Ok, so if we’ve established that Siegenthaler is really fighting it through the team’s first nine games, and he needs to get back on track if Pesce is going to miss some time, what exactly can be done to help both Siegenthaler and the team overcome Pesce’s injury? There are a few things the team could try:
More Offensive Zone Starts: Here’s one that’s simple. According to Hockey Reference, Siegenthaler has an offensive zone start percentage in the high-30’s, and a defensive zone start percentage in the low-60’s. This is roughly in line with his usage last season. The difference is, last season he could handle that tough deployment, while this season he can’t. In 2022-23 and 2023-24 he was closer to 45-55 offensive to defensive zone start ratio. I would suggest dialing back Siegenthaler’s usage to be closer to that range until he can figure things out.
Pair Him With Simon Nemec: I admit, this has the potential to backfire greatly. Nemec has been a bit of a rollercoaster early on, with plenty of good moments and plenty of really bad moments. He is coming off perhaps his best game of the season though, as he posted the first three-point game of his career in the Devils’ overtime win over the Avalanche on Sunday. So maybe his game and his confidence are rising. There’s also the fact that Nemec and Siegenthaler worked great together in the playoffs last year. It was limited action to be sure, but in 18:22 minutes together at 5-on-5, that duo posted a dominant 87.18 xGF%. That’s not easy to do against a tough Carolina team. Perhaps head coach Sheldon Keefe can see if lightning will strike twice.
Less Time Against Elite Competition: Take a look through Siegenthaler’s most common opponents every night, and you’ll see that the best players are usually near the top of the list. Draisaitl, MacKinnon, Matthews, Kaprizov, Kucherov…the list goes on. Much like the Hischier line, Siegenthaler is getting a lot of matchup minutes. He has yet to prove that he can be as effective in this role as he was a season ago. So I would suggest easing off the brutal assignments for a bit. Give him some more shifts against some second and third lines and fewer against first lines.
Final Thoughts And Your Take
You will notice that none of those suggested solutions involve Siegenthaler actually stepping directly in for Pesce. In fact, I’ve sort of taken the opposite approach: instead of asking Siegenthaler to take on even tougher assignments in Pesce’s absence, I want to shelter Siegenthaler a little more for the time being. This is obviously not the ideal thing to do, and to be honest I highly doubt Keefe will actually do this. But I think it might help the Devils in the long run to give Siegenthaler a little breather to see if he can get back to top form. Especially considering that on this upcoming road trip, after the Colorado game, there isn’t a particularly imposing team in California to worry about. Yes we just saw the Devils squeak out a win over the Sharks, but that’s still a bad team. The Ducks are improved this season but still lackluster, and the Kings have taken a big step back. If there was ever a stretch to risk sheltering Siegenthaler and seeing if your other defenseman can cover for him while Pesce is out, it is that one.
Or hey, maybe Siegenthaler can just get back to dominating defensively like we know he can. I’m not quite sure what is up with Siegenthaler this season, whether he’s fighting through some injury we don’t know about or if he’s just coming out of the gate slowly. Either way, I don’t think his talent just magically disappeared. I just hope he finds himself again sooner rather than later. If Pesce is going to be out a while, the Devils will really need Siegenthaler to get back to being Siegenthaler.
What do you make of Siegenthaler’s early season struggles? Do you even agree that he’s struggling, or does your eye test tell you differently? Do you agree with any of the suggested solutions, or is there something else you might want the Devils to try? Thanks for reading!