G35 New Jersey Devils vs. Pittsburgh Penguins: Home cooking

The Devils have another opportunity to build on their mediocre home record (9-6-3) Saturday night against the Penguins.

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By JP Gambatese (@JP_Gambatese)

Fresh off of a 4-2 defeat against the Columbus Blue Jackets – one in which they outshot their opposition 42-20 and out-expected goals (xG)’d them 6.69-3.04 at that – the New Jersey Devils are looking to bounce back at home against a Pittsburgh Penguins team riding a 7-2-1 10-game stretch.

Here are a few notes to prepare you for tonight’s matchup:

Penguins are unexpectedly dangerous

Three teams in the NHL produce more xG per 60 minutes than the Devils. Somewhat surprisingly, all three reside in the Metropolitan Division. Even more surprisingly, one of them is the Penguins.

Pittsburgh is third in the league in xGF/60, outproducing the Devils 2.86 to 2.78 in the metric. They also sit seventh in the league in SCF/60 and second (!!) in HDCF/60. 

Looking at their record, this may come as a slight shock, but looking at their on-paper lineup, this sort of makes sense.

Their top line of Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust, and of course Sidney Crosby has been absolutely rolling of late, producing an impressive 3.2 xG per hour and supplying the team with a 53.82 xGF% in the month of December. 

The trio has also combined for 13 goals and 34 total points in just eight games since the calendar flipped months. 

The caveat to all this is that their defense has been outright abysmal. In fact, their fifth-worst xGA/60 has neutralized their offensive output almost completely, and they sit only a smidge above 50% xGF% as a result.

The solution for the Devils is to, well, keep doing exactly what they’re doing, skater-wise. They’ve limited opponents to fewer than 25 shots in all but one game this month (a 5-1 victory over the Rangers), and most of those chances have been low-danger.

They were a bit leakier quality-wise against the Blue Jackets than fans have grown accustomed to over the last 20 days, but expectations of perfection on a nightly basis are unrealistic. 

Pittsburgh throws a lot of pucks on net, ranking seventh in the league on a per-60 basis, but then again, so does Columbus. And Colorado. And Los Angeles. In fact, every team in the NHL besides the Blackhawks and Red Wings averages more than 25 shots per game, and the Devils were able to stymie just about everyone this month to fewer than that anyway. 

Goaltending and Jack Hughes are the keys