On Nico Hischier's first true slump of the season

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By CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil)

According to HockeyStatCards, the New Jersey Devils’ loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning was the third consecutive game in which Nico Hischier produced a negative gamescore.

While he broke out of the negative column yesterday against the Carolina Hurricanes, he did still produce his fourth straight game of getting out-chanced and being held off the scoresheet. Unsurprisingly, his five-game rolling average gamescore is the lowest it’s been all season.

The Devils have lost all four of these games. They didn’t lose them because of Nico’s play, but it certainly didn’t help matters. Given the overall variation of his game-to-game performance, this stretch of games certainly seems within the margin of error. So it is not, on its own, a cause for sustained concern. But I think there’s some context that we should at least keep in mind when considering these results.

Hischier has developed a bit of a reputation for being “injury-prone” over his short career. I’m not sure that’s entirely warranted because many of his absences have been due to unrelated, often flukey events – an offseason leg injury, multiple COVID absences, a puck to the face, etc. – but, it’s a label he will nonetheless need to shake. I bring this up because Nico has had a couple injuries that he’s brushed off this season, one in October and another in January. 

Maybe Nico doesn’t want to give any fuel to those who think he’s injury-prone. Maybe he knows he’s the youngest captain in the NHL and the best way to establish his leadership is on the ice. Or maybe there’s nothing wrong at all and I’m reading too much into things. After all, there is another potential explanation for the declining production.