Does John Marino have another gear?

JP Gambatese examines whether Marino can take things up a notch on the offensive end of the ice.

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By JP Gambatese (@JP_Gambatese)

There’s no denying that John Marino is an excellent, steady defenseman in his own end. In fact, he’s one of the best in the league without the puck.

However, the other end of the ice provides a bit of a different look — relatively speaking, he’s a black hole.

Marino had the second worst 5v5 xGF% of any Devils defenseman with at least 1,000 minutes on-ice. The only player with that criteria with a worse xGF% was his partner for most of the year, Ryan Graves. 

Microstats provide a different story, painting Marino as a player who has all the tools to be a magnificent two-way defenseman. He just hasn’t put it all together since his rookie season. 

Getting past the absurdly good defensive microstats, there’s still a hell of a lot of blue in his chart. His finishing is unimpressive, and his micros back that up as well, but looking at the passing statistics prove that Marino has more in the tank.

The eye test aligns with that, too. 

Take a trip back to Game 7 against the Rangers. In the latter half of the second period, John Marino walked three separate Rangers players and almost scored a beautiful goal en route to delivering a tasty assist to Tomas Tatar. 

While that’s easily his most memorable display of playmaking from this past season, there are many more examples to be had.

For someone with tools like that, and microstats that back them up, his offensive ability not translating into two-way dominance simply doesn’t make sense. 

I think it’s more likely than not that Marino ends up paired up with Luke Hughes to start the season in October.

While the logical conclusion there is that Marino will turn into even more of a stay-at-home defenseman and let Luke do his thing, I have a feeling that it will help unlock Marino’s offensive game instead.