Data dump: Takeaways from Devils vs. Hurricanes

I tracked all five games of New Jersey's first round series. Let's take a closer look at some numbers that stood out.

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The New Jersey Devils won’t play another meaningful hockey game for more than five months and there is a long runway to prepare for the draft, free agency, and the like.

Thus, I’m going to look (slightly) back and share some takeaways from the shot contributions data I tracked in the opening round.

Keep in mind that these numbers only factor in 5v5 play.

Forwards

New Jersey’s star wingers certainly showed up for the series. Jesper Bratt skated on a line with Dawson Mercer and Erik Haula – the lesser set of top-6 linemates – and was tasked with playing the Jack Hughes role, doing all the heavy lifting through the neutral zone while facilitating everything in the final third. Clearly, he did a great job.

Bratt was directly responsible for the creation of more shot attempts than anybody on the roster and helped Dawson Mercer and Erik Haula elevate their games to a level we haven’t seen all year long.

I mean, Mercer went from 4-4.5 shot contributions per game over the last two regular seasons to nearly seven. He worked his ass off – and deserves credit for his improved play – but it’s safe to say Bratt had a healthy hand in that.

I mean, look at those shot assist numbers. Ondrej Palat was the only player in the same universe as Bratt and he spent a lot of his time playing with the team’s leading goal scorer in the playoffs and the team’s leading shot generator.

Sticking with the latter, Meier definitely played his part in this series. He generated a ton of shot volume and a lot of it came from high-danger areas.

He took plenty of heat for squandering chances over the first couple of games but it says a lot he led the entire series – I’m talking sole possession – in 5v5 points and all the talk is about how he didn’t do enough.

Would it have been nice for him to tuck in a couple more goals? You bet! But, overall, he showed up, he produced, and he was one of the main reasons most of the games were competitive.

Cody Glass and Paul Cotter didn’t fare half bad in terms of volume. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of quality. That line struggled to get to the middle of the ice and cause havoc around the net.

Stefan Noesen is not a big volume guy – and never will be – but generating less than Nathan Bastian is a big yikes. I was really disappointed with his playoffs.

The rest is probably what you’d expect.

Defense