Late-night double-parter.
After playing just one game on the fourth line, Arseny Gritsyuk was bumped up to the third in last night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning due to a fractured hand for Evgenii Dadonov. Moving from right wing to left, fans got a first look of what Gritsyuk would look like on that side. For a player who came in with a reputation for his shot, some may have worried that Gritsyuk would not be able to create as efficiently from the left.
Well, Gritsyuk washed those fears away the matter of minutes. Let’s get into this goal breakdown, which was Gritsyuk’s first NHL point.
The Situation
Playing with Cody Glass and Connor Brown, Gritsyuk was flying up the left side of the ice for the New Jersey Devils, earning his first multi-point game with a two-assist night. Connor Brown, who last scored 20 goals in the 2020-21 season (before his torn ACL in 2022), finished both plays. While the injury to Dadonov is troubling for multiple reasons, the Devils seemingly do not have to worry about Gritsyuk being able to play a bit higher in the lineup. Is he ready for top six time? I am not sure, but Gritsyuk did not need a ton of minutes to be productive in the KHL, producing most of his 44 points (in 49 games) last season at even strength, and this is a great first step for him.
At the specific moment Brown scored last night, this was the situation:
- The teams were playing at five-on-five with just under 10 minutes to play in the first period.
- The Devils were winning 1-0, outshooting Tampa Bay 5-1 before the goal.
- The Devils on the ice: #81 Arseny Gritsyuk, #12 Cody Glass, #16 Connor Brown, #5 Brenden Dillon, and #17 Simon Nemec (Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce change off for Dillon and Nemec at the beginning of the sequence)
- The Lightning on the ice: #14 Connor Geekie, #37 Yanni Gourde, #22 Oliver Bjorkstrand, #43 Darren Raddysh, and #78 Emil Lilleberg
Tim recapped the game in full last night.
The Video
The Breakdown
Taking the puck from Markstrom behind the net, Luke Hughes turns away from Yanni Gourde and hits Arseny Gritsyuk in stride. The Devils did not get any chances to break out of their own zone with this kind of speed against Carolina, and you can see why teams try to nail them down with the forecheck. Tampa Bay is not pressuring them here after going for a change, and it gives Gritsyuk all kinds of time and space to work with. This is what the ice looked like when Gritsyuk was about to get the puck.
You can see Yanni Gourde (37) going towards the boards on the far side from Gritsyuk, sort of skating towards where Connor Brown is working from. But right here, you can also see Oliver Bjorkstrand turning to backcheck up the middle of the ice, but he does not have the speed to make a play. Let’s see that in motion.
I have always been very high on Gritsyuk since he first showed signs of being more when he was with Avangard in the KHL, but translating to the NHL is always a bit of a question mark with the smaller ice surface and faster opponents. Here, Gritsyuk showed his speed off, and it’s enough to put defenders on their heels. Per NHL EDGE, Gritsyuk has already hit a high of 21.73 MPH while skating, which puts him in the 75th percentile of forwards through the first few games of the season.
As Gritsyuk goes to enter the offensive zone, still using that speed while carrying the puck, he finds himself in a two-on-three with Connor Brown, who is also one of the fastest skaters in the league. Brown’s 23.23 MPH top skating speed lands him in the 99th percentile for the league’s first weekend.
Cody Glass, standing at the blueline, is going to wait to be the third forward in. Nearest Gritsyuk is Darren Raddysh, while Emil Lilleberg is turned towards him in the middle of the ice. On the far side is Connor Geekie. Let’s see this half in motion.
Once Gritsyuk and Brown both have their defenders beat about three seconds into this video, it’s all over for them. Now, considering that the Lightning have four skaters in the defensive zone to the Devils’ three (Glass is just coming in from the point below), the quickness with which Gritsyuk took this puck up the ice matters a lot more. Bjorkstrand is resigned to covering the pass back to the point, and Geekie is in no-man’s land a bit to Bjorkstrand’s right, both covering the pass back to Glass.
So, that passing lane is clear as day for Gritsyuk. Raddysh has reached one foot on the dot here, but Brown has completely blown by Lilleberg, whose left skate is still ion the back hash of the faceoff circle. Brown now has the advantage of not just getting to the pass cleanly, but he sets himself up a bit towards Vasilevskiy’s stick side so he just needs to focus on getting the puck up rather than chipping it back in the other direction. Look where Brown is when this pass gets to him:
From here, the puck jumps off Brown’s stick over Vasilevskiy’s pad and glove and beats him up high, just inside the far post. Since Gritsyuk had Raddysh beat by the dot, Vasilevskiy is unable to even think about poking that pass away, and Brown put it in the toughest spot for him to save. Connor Brown could not have drawn that shot up any better, with no time for the goalie to react and no chance for Lilleberg to even hook him out of the goal. With the speed of Brown, Gritsyuk only needed to put it in that spot just beyond the crease for the Devils to go up two.
It’s a good sign for Connor Brown, who has been steadily getting better since his knee injury, as he was capable of putting up upwards of 50 points when he was a bit younger in Ottawa. Between this and his later goal, Sheldon Keefe has to be hoping for a resurgence from him. As for Arseny Gritsyuk, he may just keep showing defenses that they need to defend him with the same respect they give some of the other Devils skaters.
Onto the other news, which is less pleasant.
Evgenii Dadonov To Injured Reserve
Well, it did not take long for some of the worst fears of Devils fans to come true this year.
As Amanda Stein recently detailed, the Devils had Evgenii Dadonov get an x-ray after he left the game in Carolina with a hand injury. As reported then, Dadonov could not grip his stick after taking a shot to the hand. While that first x-ray was negative, a second round of imaging indicated a fracture. Thus, Zack MacEwen played on the fourth line against Tampa Bay, with Gritsyuk sliding up to the third line and Palat rejoining Hughes and Bratt.
While the Devils did not reveal a timeline for the injury when placing Dadonov on IR, a 2020 NYU study showed that NHL players miss an average of just over 14 games, with considerable variation. At the very least, a month out of the lineup is likely in order for Dadonov, though, and the condensed nature of the NHL schedule this season due to the Olympics may mean that he ends up missing a few games above average.
If Dadonov missed six weeks from the time of his injury, he would have missed 18 games with the chance to return on the six-week mark against the Florida Panthers on November 20. That means that Brian Halonen — the man called up to replace him — will get a big chance to make an impression that lets him stick around in the NHL.
To date, Brian Halonen has only played four games in the NHL, putting four shots on net out of 10 attempts in fourth line minutes. He has not had any luck on a line yet, with a 88.5 PDO through those games. But Halonen has never even been allowed a week in the NHL.
The Devils may still hold him out of the lineup a bit too much while they have Zack MacEwen. MacEwen might be a serviceable hockey player and a better fighter than Halonen, but it would be nice for the Devils to figure out by the end of the month whether Halonen is ready for the league. There are other players, like Shane LaChance, Angus Crookshank, and Thomas Bordeleau, who might be worth taking a look at if Halonen does not show anything in his games (I would like for him to actually get at least five or six, though).
Eventually, Dadonov will return and the lineup will get a little better in the top six (assuming Gritsyuk doesn’t force his way up there by then). But until that happens, Sheldon Keefe and Tom Fitzgerald have a chance to tinker with the extra skater line of succession. Can Halonen play in the NHL and still score the same goal-scorer goals? Is Shane LaChance ready for the NHL? Does Angus Crookshank have a future as a bottom six center? Can any of these players be relied upon as depth in the playoffs? Those questions can start getting answered, and I hope the Devils don’t limit themselves from trying different things out while they have the freedom to.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of Arseny Gritsyuk’s first point? How are you feeling about him and Brown on the third line? How did you react to the news on Dadonov? How many games do you think Halonen will get to prove himself? Do you think he will? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.