The Devils' penalty kill still appears to be a strength

Despite making changes behind the bench, New Jersey's penalty kill has picked up where it left off last season.

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By Alex Chauvancy (@AlexC_THW)

Special teams are a crucial part of the success of any NHL team. If you're a side with playoff aspirations, you'll want at least league-average power plays and penalty kills. The New Jersey Devils' power play was anything but league-average a season ago, but that wasn't the case with their penalty kill. 

The Devils finished the 2021-22 season with a penalty kill success rate of 80.2 percent, ranked 14th in the NHL. Still, they mutually parted ways with Alain Nasreddine and replaced him with Ryan McGill, who had previously spent five years with the Vegas Golden Knights as a defensive assistant. 

Aside from the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign, the Devils always had reliable penalty kills under Nasreddine. There was certainly a bit of risk in making the change but, so far, that unit has picked up where it left off a season ago. 

It's early, but the penalty kill is off to an encouraging start

Though not much went right for the Devils a season ago, their penalty kill was generally reliable. They gave up an average of 79.16 shot attempts per 60 minutes, the third-best mark in the league, and 6.2 expected goals per 60, the seventh-best mark.

Had their goaltending been a bit better — their 4-on-5 save percentage was eighth-lowest in the NHL — they likely would've had a better success rate than 80.2 percent. 

Though it's still very early in the season, and the samples are small, the Devils' penalty kill rates look similar to what they did in 2021-22.

They're giving up an average of 78.26 shot attempts and 6.97 expected goals per 60, ranked fifth and 13th in the NHL. 

Sure, they've only been at 4-on-5 for 23 minutes this season, but it's more or less a continuation of what they did last year; and even a few weeks ago during the preseason.

In seven exhibition games, they gave up an average of 74.8 shot attempts and 5.03 expected goals per 60 and killed 20 of the 22 penalties they faced, a success rate of 90.9 percent.

That's similar to the 92.3 percent success rate they've posted through four regular-season games. And though that will regress somewhere into the 80s eventually, all their underlyings are encouraging at the moment. The PK unit has played a factor in their two wins. 

The Devils' kill came up big in a couple of different spots against the Anaheim Ducks in their 4-2 comeback victory. They also had a crucial kill at the end of the first period against the New York Islanders when the game was still 0-0 and shots were 15-1 New Jersey. Had the Devils given up a goal and it went down 1-0, it could've been a different game with the way Ilya Sorokin was playing. 

The right pieces are in place