2024 Kickoff Post- All about the Jerseys

Welcome to the annual showdown! Every year, I like to see New Jersey Devils In terms of the scrum, see who is good at keeping the ball in the team, who is improving or needs to work harder. The scrum is obviously not the most important part of the game, or even the most important part, but who gets the initial possession after the scrum can sometimes have a pretty big impact, so the scrum should not be completely ignored.

Things changed in the faceoff department last season after Michael McLeod left the team to deal with a legal dispute. McLeod has been one of the best faceoff men in the entire NHL over the past few seasons, which was one of the main reasons he was re-signed to a one-year, $1.4 million contract last offseason. He was a consistent faceoff winner of over 60 percent and often came into the game in key moments in the defensive zone or in overtime, where he would win the tie and then immediately return to the bench for someone else to take over.

The Devils were a very strong faceoff team early in the season after McLeod joined the team, one of the best, if not the best. They obviously took a hit in this area after McLeod left, as they lost the best faceoff player in the league. However, the Devils are still in a good spot here, as several other players still have a win rate of over 50% and several more have a win rate of over 55%. There has been a significant improvement in deep faceoff ability compared to the past few years that I have been writing these posts. Take a look at the chart of every Devils team that faced at least 100 faceoffs in the regular season, thanks to Natural Statistics Techniques.

First, McLeod’s faceoff success rate is 65.13%, the highest among players in the league with more than 35 faceoff attempts, and McLeod has 651 faceoff successes. The second highest faceoff success rate in the league is Jeff Carter, with a success rate of 62.62%, 2.5% lower than McLeod, and Carter has only 420 faceoff successes, 231 less than McLeod. This is enough to show how strong he is in the faceoff circle. No one is better than him, and no one can match him.

Besides MacLeod, we also need to give Nico Hischier some serious love. He took 1,387 faceoffs over the course of the season, winning 56.6% of them. Considering the sheer volume of his attempts, that’s very, very good. Hischier had the 11th-most faceoff wins in the NHL during the regular season, so he was asked to take a ton of attempts, and he performed well. Among all NHL players with at least 100 faceoff attempts, he ranked 16th in win percentage, and again, he took over 1,300 attempts, not just the minimum number of attempts. Yes, Chris Tierney had a higher win percentage, but he didn’t even take 200 attempts, so while we should applaud Tierney for doing well in his attempts, Nico’s slightly lower win percentage is still more impressive.

Another player on the team with a high number of faceoffs is Eric Haula, who is not to be outdone. Haula’s 54.77% faceoff success rate is pretty high, ranking 33rd among NHL players with at least 100 faceoffs. He faced off 891 times, which is also a pretty high number. The Devils often rely on him to win ties, and he won nearly 55% of those ties, which is statistically significant at 900 faceoffs. The Devils have three players who have combined for over 2,900 faceoffs and an average win rate of well over 57%, which is a dominance in the faceoff circle. I don’t want to compare other teams, but I can’t imagine the Devils being one of the top three teams in the NHL for faceoffs this past season because of these three players, and if you add in Tierney’s 194 faceoffs, that’s four players.

Outside of them, however, the talent in the faceoff puck is really gone. Tomas Nosek is OK, and I don’t want to lump him in with the guys who are losing. He does have a 51.93% win rate in 233 attempts, so he’s definitely acceptable. But everyone else is terrible. The Devils clearly stopped running Jack Hughes in the faceoff puck this year, having finally given up on the idea that he could get any better here. Jack Hughes is an excellent puck player, one of the best in the NHL, but he has never been good at the faceoff puck since he entered the league. His win rate last season was 37.22%, which is about normal for him, although it’s obviously poor for a guy who played over 300 faceoff pucks. The Devils would be better off having another good faceoff puck player on his line, and they should definitely take that into account when formulating next year’s roster.

The final player to discuss is Dawson Mercer, who has also not been very good at faceoffs since arriving at the Devils, although he hasn’t been as bad as Jack and certainly hasn’t been here very long. He can play on the wing, so he doesn’t need to be the faceoff man for this team long-term, but if he can work on that and at least get to an average of 50%, it would open up options for different lines where he can regularly play faceoffs.

Ultimately, the Devils are an excellent scrimmage team overall in the 2023-24 season. With the trio of McLeod, Hischel, and Haula, New Jersey is arguably the best scrimmage team in the league. On the bottom end, guys like Mercer and Hughes have been pretty awful, but the vast majority of draws have gone to one of those three top guys, and the Devils have been winning far more often than losing in that department. Next year might be different, as who knows what will happen with McLeod, and they’ll certainly fall behind without him. But as long as Hischel and Haula can hit plenty of draws, which will likely be the case again next year, they’re still pretty good here, if not the best.