New Jersey Devils

What the Quant Says

248 goals, 19th in the league, off the 7th-best expected-goal rate at even strength (2.854 per 60). The output is below the input, and the gap is the 30th-ranked power play rather than the skaters.

Jack Hughes scored 56 points in 49 games — a 94-point pace — and Jesper Bratt 73 in 76. Nico Hischier added 60 in 70. All three are 24 or younger.

Yegor Sharangovich's 24 goals came with only seven per cent of his points on the power play. Dawson Mercer played all eighty-two at twenty and scored forty-two.

What the Scout Says

Jack Hughes is the only skater in the league who played forty games and finished with zero penalty minutes. He also covered the 2nd-most ground of the 365 forwards the tracking measures, took the 5th-most takeaways and the 3rd-most giveaways of 393, and scored at a 94-point pace across forty-nine games. Availability is the only thing between him and that number.

Jesper Bratt's 2.96 even-strength points per 60 is the 93rd percentile and his 56.7 per cent chance share the 36th-best of 393 forwards.

Nico Hischier scored sixty from 19:21 a night while killing 1:43 — and his 9.03 miles per 60 is the 9th percentile, against a 23.1 mph top speed at the 84th. Quick, and covering less ground than almost any forward in hockey.

Michael McLeod is the opposite extreme: the 12th-most sprints of 365, the 19th-hardest deployment, the 97th-percentile takeaway rate — and the 5th-percentile shot rate. Forty points in 162 games from the twelfth pick of 2016.

What the Quant Says

307 goals against, 29th in the league, off the 21st-ranked expected-goals-against rate at even strength (2.685 per 60).

The gap between 21st and 29th is entirely the crease. The skaters conceded 172.7 expected goals at five-on-five and the club allowed 216.

Damon Severson played 23:36 a night at the 12th-percentile block rate. Jonas Siegenthaler posted the best defensive share on the club — 53.2 per cent of the expected goals — and his ice still gave back fifteen goals against the model.

What the Scout Says

Dougie Hamilton took more shots per 60 than any of the 202 qualified defencemen in the league — 8.98 — while recording the 4th-slowest top speed and the 4th-fewest sprints of 192. A 6-6 defenceman who shoots more than anyone at his position and cannot recover when it goes the other way. At 29 the second half of that grows.

Damon Severson played the most minutes on the club at 23:36 and blocked at the 12th percentile, hit at the 35th, and posted the 9th-percentile penalty ledger. Forty-six points is a genuine top-pair offensive season sitting on top of that.

John Marino arrives with the 95th-percentile penalty ledger and the 88th for takeaways, and one goal on ninety shots. Ryan Graves took the 16th-percentile offensive-zone start, blocked at the 78th and drew more than he took at 6-5.

Jonas Siegenthaler has the best chance share of the group and 27 points in 175 career games. The corps is deep in defenders and thin in everything else.

What the Quant Says

32nd in the league at minus-43.3 goals saved below expectation. The worst figure in hockey, by thirty goals over the club ranked 31st.

Mackenzie Blackwood posted .8919 across twenty-five games — 49th of the 53 who played twenty-five — and his save percentage has now fallen in every one of his four NHL seasons: .9178, .9146, .9019, .8919. Nico Daws went 10-11 at .8930 in twenty-five and has gone off the roster; Jon Gillies and Jonathan Bernier filled the rest.

Vitek Vanecek arrives with two seasons at .9079 and .9078. That is a league-average starter, and on this club it is worth roughly two wins before anything else changes.

What the Scout Says

Mackenzie Blackwood's save percentage has fallen in each of his four NHL seasons: .9178, .9146, .9019, .8919. Two hundred and fifty-nine points lost, monotonically, across 3,933 shots. It is the second such straight-line decline in this batch, alongside Cal Petersen's in Los Angeles.

Nico Daws posted .8930 across twenty-five games and has gone off the roster. Jon Gillies and Jonathan Bernier took the remainder. Four goaltenders dressed and none reached .894.

Vitek Vanecek arrives with .9079 and .9078 in his two NHL seasons — a record about as unambiguous as a goaltender's can be, and almost exactly league average.

The club's skaters produced a top-twelve process and the crease cost them forty-three goals against expectation. Replacing .892 with .908 across a season is worth roughly two wins on its own, and nothing else on this roster needs to change for the record to move a long way.

What the Quant Says

30th in the league at 5.106 expected goals per 60, over 4:56 a night.

A club with a 94-point-pace centre, a 73-point winger and a first-overall centre finished third-last on the power play. That is the one place the skaters can be held responsible, and it is a large one.

Dougie Hamilton took 27 per cent of his points here and Damon Severson 35 per cent, both around the 85th percentile at their position. The personnel is not the obvious problem.

What the Scout Says

Thirtieth in the league, with this personnel, is the hardest thing in this chapter to explain.

Dougie Hamilton played 2:29 a night at the 87th percentile among defencemen and took 27 per cent of his points there. Damon Severson, 2:20 and 35 per cent. Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt each took a quarter of their points on it; Nico Hischier a fifth.

Nobody on the roster is a power-play specialist and nobody is being carried by it — which is healthy, and does not explain a unit generating 5.106 expected goals per 60.

The one clear absence: Ryan Graves, Jonas Siegenthaler and Andreas Johnsson combined for one power-play point between them.

What the Quant Says

10th in the league at 6.053 expected goals against per 60, over 4:03 a night — the smallest short-handed workload of the four clubs in this batch, at the best rate.

Nico Hischier carried 1:43 of it, the 80th percentile among forwards, while also taking 2:49 on the power play. Michael McLeod's 97th-percentile takeaway rate and 84th-percentile hits come out of the same job.

A top-ten kill on a club that finished 28th is the clearest evidence that the structure was not the problem.

What the Scout Says

Nico Hischier killed 1:43 a night, the 80th percentile among forwards, while taking 2:49 on the power play — the two-way workload that separates a first-line centre from a scorer.

Michael McLeod's 2.69 takeaways per 60 is the 97th percentile and his 8.48 hits the 84th, from the 19th-hardest deployment of 365 forwards. That is the coherent version of a fourth-line centre and it is why forty points in four seasons has not cost him a job.

Nathan Bastian hits at the 97th percentile and blocks at the 89th at 6-4, and takes penalties at the 89th — the cost the 10th-ranked kill can absorb.

A top-ten penalty kill on a 63-point club is the strongest evidence available that this roster was better than its record.