The West Coast road trip has not been kind to the New Jersey Devils in recent memory. Since leaving Prudential Center with a 4-3 overtime win on Oct. 26, the Devils are 1-3 while giving up 18 goals so they have been anything but California Dreamin’. Okay, that pun might have worked better if one of those games wasn’t an 8-4 disaster against the Colorado Avalanche. That game was a mile high disappointment for New Jersey.
All four of those losses have had the Devils face multi-goal deficits early on. Against the Avalanche, they were down 5-0 by the midway point of the second. This past Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks, they found themselves in a 3-0 hole in the early goings. Against the San Jose Sharks, it was a 2-0 deficit. Their win against the Los Angeles Kings was the only game they scored first and held a lead at any point in the contest.
New Jersey’s polarizing special teams make it hard to make sense of this skid. Two of those five early goals scored by Colorado were power play goals, and they would add two more, for a total of four scored in a single game. On the other side, they didn’t surrender a power play goal to the Sharks. In fact, New Jersey's Dawson Mercer would score two power play goals.
The next game against the Los Angeles Kings, Mercer would score two shorthanded goals. That makes him the first player in league history to do so (score multiple power play goals followed by multiple shorthanded goals) in the same game. No special team’s goals for either side were scored in Anaheim.
The road trip coincides with the return of goaltender Jakob Markstrom. Markstrom was in net for the clunker against Colorado, but followed up with perhaps the best performance by any Devils goaltender this season against the Kings. Still, he’s the only goaltender who has started for New Jersey this year with a negative goals above expected with -2.50 (good for 60th out of MoneyPuck’s 70 ranked goalies, entering play on Monday). That also serves as a testament to Jake Allen’s strong play in his absence.
A series of stats, courtesy of JFresh Hockey, could foreshadow a concerning circumstance for New Jersey. The Devils were roughly middle of the pack in 5v5 expected goals percentage in 18th place at 49.60%. Meanwhile they ranked first in the league in goals scored above expected with +6.6. It’s worth noting those stats were for games on November 2nd which was when they picked up their win against the Kings
Weak five on five play is usually a worrisome sign that a team's offensive success is not stable. With two of their three goalies being in positive territory for goals saved above expected, the Devils might not need to score their way out of their deficiencies. New Jersey still has a top five power play. Entering play on Tuesday they are fourth in the league with a 31.30% success rate.
The Devils rank just outside the league’s top ten in shots per game at 12th with 28.90. All three of New Jersey’s road trip losses saw them put more shots on net than that (30 against Colorado, 31 against San Jose and 33 against Anaheim). They put a surprisingly low total of 22 on net in their win against Los Angeles.
The Devils return to the much friendlier confines of Prudential Center on Thursday night when they take on the Montreal Canadians. Fans hope three off days is enough to get the team back on track. Hopefully the scoring woes will be left behind in California.