G61 New Jersey Devils @ Utah Hockey Club: Time for Timo

Timo Meier took off last March, scoring 13 goals in 15 games. The Devils could use more of the same this year.

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By JP Gambatese (@JP_Gambatese)

The first game of the New Jersey Devils’ five-game road trip ended poorly, as they suffered a 5-1 loss against the Colorado Avalanche. 

If they’re going to bounce back against a surging Utah Hockey Club, here is what they’ll need to do:

Give Luke Hughes & Brett Pesce all the minutes

The Hockey Club have turned into one of the most prolific rush offenses in the league. In fact, the only team with more rush shots per 60 minutes is the Dallas Stars. 

What can the Devils do to stop that? It’s simple, really. Play Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce as much as they can against UHC’s top-six.

It doesn’t matter if it’s together or on the two pairs they were practicing with yesterday (Luke and Dougie; Pesce and Kovacevic), but those two in particular should be facing the best rush threats from Utah.

According to AllThreeZones, they’ve been two of the most effective and aggressive defenders against rush opportunities in the NHL this season. Luke has a 17.7% entry denial rate, ranking eighth-best in the league. Pesce isn’t too far behind at 16.4%. 

Of the 18.45 zone entries Luke is facing per hour, he’s only allowing chances on 2.4 of them. Pesce profiles similarly, allowing 2.74 chances per hour on the 20.42 targets he sees.

Even Johnathan Kovacevic, who has been fighting it a bit as of late (but who hasn’t), is a sturdy option in terms of preventing rush chances. He’s denying 12.9% of the zone entries against him.

I would assume that if pairings remain unchanged tomorrow, he and Pesce will get the majority of the defensive starts. 

The Devils’ defensive priority needs to be to shut down the Utah rush game led by Clayton Keller and Logan Cooley. The way to do that is to deploy the defensemen who are best at aggressively denying those chances.

(Timo) Time for Meier March