Examining the New Jersey Devils' revamped power play

JP Gambatese dives deeper into all the moving parts on the power play – and why he believes it'll be even better in 2023-24.

Be sure to join the Discord channel to talk hockey with our writers and the wonderful InfernalAccess community.

---

By JP Gambatese (@JP_Gambatese)

Under Andrew Brunette, the New Jersey Devils saw a drastically improved power play last year.

Their expected goals per 60 minutes jumped from 29th league wide to 9th, and their power play percentage increased to 21.9%. That was good for 13th in the league, a far cry from the 15.6% and 28th overall ranking they held the year before. 

With Brunette being replaced by newcomer Travis Green, the system is primed to change once again. 

Taking that into account, let’s evaluate what to expect from the Devils’ power play next season:

The firepower

There’s no doubt about it, the Devils have a lot more weapons to throw around both units this year. Tyler Toffoli, full seasons of Timo Meier and Luke Hughes, and presumably Alex Holtz give the Devils several more options to play around with.

Meier is undoubtedly going to be starting on the 1st unit and for good reason. Over the last two seasons, Meier has tallied 29 power-play goals, good for 12th in the league, and ahead of names such as Matthew Tkachuk, Nathan MacKinnon, and Sidney Crosby.

Among forwards with at least 200 minutes on the man advantage, Meier was third in the league in goals per 60, only trailing Draisaitl and Thompson. 

Keeping in mind that he’s now playing with much, much better linemates on the power play than he was in San Jose, there’s reason to believe that he’s going to be a PP demon.

Toffoli is another huge acquisition for the man advantage. Last season, Toffoli scored a career high in both power play goals and points, with 10 and 25 respectively.

Again using 200 minutes as a filter for forwards, Toffoli put up a very respectable 6.31 points/60, putting him at 25th league wide and above every Devil not named Jack Hughes. 

The real wild cards to the power play will be Alex Holtz and Luke Hughes. Assuming both make the opening night roster, and both start on the second unit, the sky really is the limit for these two. 

In my opinion, if Holtz is to unlock his full man advantage potential, he needs to step into an Ovechkin type of role: sitting pretty in the left circle, waiting for a one-timeable pass. We saw it a lot between his short stint in New Jersey and his extended experience in Utica; the guy really does have an electric one-timer. 

Hughes should be taking over the Severson role of quarterbacking the 2nd unit. As palatable as Severson was, doing his best to provide chances for the likes of Miles Wood and Jesper Boqvist at times, Hughes will absolutely be an improvement here.

He’s a better skater, is more of a shooting threat, and I imagine will be able to dance along the blueline a la Cale Makar. 

All in all, the horsepower the Devils are adding should be enough to drastically improve on an already-improved power play.

The system