Three New Jersey Devils poised to regress in 2021-22

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The season preview train continues to chug along as we quickly approach the 2021-22 campaign.

Today, I’ll be looking at three New Jersey Devils players whose numbers I expect to regress – be it positively, or negatively – next season.

Pavel Zacha

Zacha is a very divisive player among Devils fans, especially after his 2021 campaign. Some believe his breakout season was lucky while others think he took a big step forward last season. Quite frankly, both sides are right. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.

No. 37 set new career highs in shots/60, chances/60, and points/60 at 5v5. He was also dangerous in non-full strength game states. And he deserves credit for that.

At the same time, a lot more went into his outburst in production than averaging an extra chance, let’s say, every three games than he did in previous years. Zacha benefited from plenty of luck.

Zacha shot 16.5%. His career average prior to last season was 9.3%. For fun, I’ll say his shot has developed and he’s an ~11% shooter now.

Had he converted at that rate, while maintaining the same shot generation and playing the same role, he’d have netted 18 goals over 82 games. Reminder: he scored 17 in 50. That’s quite the difference.

Even accounting for Zacha’s improved underlying numbers – at least in terms of individual offensive generation – he still appeared very lucky to be as productive as he was.

I think less puck luck, and perhaps less opportunity with Tomas Tatar in the fold, and a healthy Nico Hischier back in the mix, will have Zacha’s per game outputs dip in 2021-22.

That’s not to say he’ll be bad or unproductive; just that I wouldn’t expect him to score at a 28 goal pace.

Andreas Johnsson

Let me preface this by saying I’m not an Andreas Johnsson superfan who believes he’s the next Devils star and he's going to come out this year and light the world on fire. I don’t think that at all.

What I do think is that Johnsson’s a solid middle-6 forward who suffered through one of the unluckiest seasons I’ve ever seen from a player.

Even if his true talent level is less than I thought, and he’s not overly good, we can still safely assume a spike in production, and efficiency, based off improved luck.

I dove deep into Johnsson’s shockingly unproductive season earlier this summer so I’m going to defer to some research from there:

Individually, Johnsson generated 6.86 scoring chances and 0.57 xG per 60 minutes of 5v5 play. But a year ago he averaged 6.53 scoring chances and 0.53 xG per 60. So, he generated more for himself this season than last. And he produced at an 18 point pace (compared to a 40 point pace) while his 5v5 efficiency was cut almost exactly in half.

If the volume was there, why wasn’t the production? Again, percentages.

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Beyond the fact Johnsson nor his teammates could finish anything when he was on the ice, he also suffered from a big dip in IPP (individual points percentage). That is, quite simply, the percentage of goals scored a player picks up a point on.

Johnsson came in at 40%, picking up eight 5v5 points on 20 5v5 goals. That is *extremely* low for a forward. Mikhail Maltsev (50%) was the only other Devils forward to come in below 55%.

In the two years prior to this, Johnsson’s IPP was 65%. Had Johnsson finished in line with that average, he’d have picked up 13 points on 20 5v5 goals.

That’s still nothing to write home about, I know, but it’d put him on level terms with Jason Zucker, Anthony Cirelli and Patrik Laine, to name but a few.

Johnsson isn’t going to be slotted high in the lineup. And he doesn’t have to be to up his outputs.

If he can simply match last season’s generation numbers, be it individual or on-ice, I’m confident several more pucks will go for him.

Miles Wood

I love Miles Wood. Always have, always will.

He can skate like the wind, he’s one of the few physical players on the team, and – through thick and thin – he always gives his all and works his ass off. I respect that.

Unfortunately, I think Wood’s goal scoring is going to drop next season. Wood scored on 13.4% of his chances last year, which was well above his career average of 9.4% (which factors in the 13.4%).

Much like Zacha, even if we give Wood the benefit of the doubt and assume he improved his shot/finishing a couple percentage points, his outputs still look unsustainable.

The one caveat is this: Wood is a strong high-danger chance generator, and the Devils created them at a higher rate with him on the ice than any other player.

It’s probably easier to out-perform your average shooting percentage when a lot of them are coming from Grade A positions.

I still expect a dip – Wood’s hands aren’t great and he isn’t exactly reliable on the breakaways he generates – but it’s possible his ability to get to the net helps limit the regression we see.

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numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com and Hockey-Reference.com