New Jersey Devils notes: On heavenly lineup changes and Vitek Vanecek's struggles

Ruff smartly promoted Holtz and Hughes while dropping a struggling Palat to the 3rd line. Plus, more goaltending thoughts!

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A few New Jersey Devils notes on this off-day:

Welcomed changes

Having lost back-to-back games by a combined five goals, head coach Lindy Ruff has made a handful of changes to the lineup.

Alexander Holtz was promoted into a top-6 role for the first time since early October, Ondrej Palat was removed from the top-6, Timo Meier was bumped up to line one, and Luke Hughes is now skating on the top pairing.

There’s a lot to get to there so I’m going to go player-by-player and share my thoughts on each.

I love to see Holtz skating on the 2nd line. I understand Ruff has hesitations about his defensive game – he hasn’t been perfect – but he is certainly growing in that regard and showing a willingness to get out of his comfort zone and do the dirty work. That hasn’t come at the expense of his offensive game, either.

Holtz has scored more 5v5 goals than all but Tyler Toffoli among Devils players. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. He has scored more than Jack Hughes, more than Timo Meier, more than Nico Hischier, more than Jesper Bratt, more than…you get the point. He also leads the team in 5v5 points per 60 minutes.

Holtz’ vision and slick passing have continued to impress me and we all know what he can do in terms of shooting the puck.

I think he has earned this opportunity. Even if Ruff doesn’t fully believe that to be true, it makes sense to give Holtz a shot. What the team was doing sans Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier clearly wasn’t working.

Moving Palat down to the 3rd line is definitely the right decision. He just doesn’t have the offensive juice at this point in his career. I think Palat is still a useful player but he has zero (0) goals this season and his game is better suited for a bottom-6 role. He is a nice fit alongsid Erik Haula on a 3rd line that should see plenty of defensive usage.

Meier leads the Devils in attempts, shots on goal, chances, high-danger chances, and expected goals since Hughes went down with an injury. He is really coming along and playing him opposite side Jesper Bratt – arguably the team’s best player right now – could fuel the fire even further.

Lastly, we have Luke Hughes on the top pairing. Words can’t express how here for that I am. To say Brendan Smith has weighed Hughes down at 5v5 would be the understatement of the century.

Hughes has managed a 39 xGF% and -5 goal differential (2 GF, 7 GA) with Smith on his pairing.

Without Smith? We’re talking a a 69.99 xGF% (!!!!!!!) and +3 goal differential (5 GF, 2 GA). That is a nearly 70 minute sample, too. It’s not like we’re talking about a couple shifts here and there. That’s a handful of games worth of ice where Hughes has helped the Devils control an astronomically high share of the expected goals.

The early returns suggest we should be in for an absolute treat with Hughes playing on a pairing with Dougie Hamilton.

Give Jonas Siegenthaler and John Marino the world’s most difficult minutes and let Hughes and Hamilton feast with plenty of offensive zone starts.

Vanecek – not Schmid – is the bigger problem