Tom Fitzgerald has constructed a very balanced defense

The Devils made significant changes to the defense this off-season – changes that will help shore up some of the lapses we saw last year.

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By David Mudrak (@MuddyOpinions)

The New Jersey Devils were a defensively porous team last year. They would go through sections of a game where they would allow two or three goals in mere minutes. They let in the first goal nearly every game.

While I often argued the problems mainly came down to goaltending, it was clear the defense was not helping the team as much as needed. 

Tom Fitzgerald found a true starting goaltender for the team in Jacob Markstrom. Instead of stopping there and hoping the problem was simply the goaltending, he adjusted the defensive personnel, swapping out three of the seven defensemen likely to play minutes for the NHL club. 

It is old news at this point that Brendan Smith, Kevin Bahl, and John Marino are out. However, what did their leaving change, and how will their replacements make a positive impact?

I will be one of the first to note that Brendan Smith did not have a place on this team, and his departure will be a great addition to the Devils. I can acknowledge that his penalty-killing ability was impressive, but he was unbearably incapable of five-on-five play. Similarly, I think that Kevin Bahl’s departure will be an addition by subtraction.

While he has his fans, and there is even some data to back up claims that he has been a positive defender, the Devils do not have the time to let him grow into what he may become while playing two other young defensemen.

If there were any upgrades to the defense, it always felt like Bahl was going to be the first defender on the chopping block, as he was likely too good to be an extra defenseman. 

That brings us to John Marino. The 27-year-old had a rough season this past year. He clearly hurt the team, but his poor play felt like an anomaly of poor goaltending, extra-load from Dougie Hamilton being injured, and unfortunate luck and regression that could have changed for this upcoming season.

I was a John Marino fan. I truly felt that he would bounce back next season, and I liked that he had an affordable contract if he could play a top-4 role.

However, Fitzgerald was leaving little to chance for this next season, and John Marino was moved out for a slightly more veteran defender in Brett Pesce. 

My thoughts mostly centered around the above ideas. I felt that the Devils had moved on from a couple of defensemen who hurt them and one who could likely help. However, I wanted to better understand whether and how this defensive unit improved.

In investigating ways to compare players, specifically defensemen, I focused on Dom Luszczyszyn’s net score system. 

Writing for The Athletic, Dom established a new evaluative number based on game score but separated it into offensive and defensive impact, along with one final number that is a sum of those two impacts. If players score a “0” net rating, they are entirely average. Any deviation from zero shows that they have some kind of positive or negative impact. 

Looking at the defensive changes through the lens of Dom’s ratings adds depth to the adjustments and better illustrates what Fitzgerald was attempting to do for the team.

If we first look at the defensemen who left, their numbers match the idea that they will help the team by simply not being there. Those three defenders had the worst net ratings on the team, with Bahl at -5.0, Marino at -5.5, and Smith at -7.1. 

Those numbers are egregiously poor. Those three were in the bottom 17% of the league's defensemen—all three were in the bottom 53 out of 330 defenders with a net rating score. In theory, the team would be better by simply having them leave and taking a chance on three different players.

Never mind that one of the replacements will be a healthy Dougie Hamilton, who is considered one of the best offensive defensemen in the league. Furthermore, all three defenders had the worst defense ratings on the team. So not only were they bad overall, but specifically, they were not helping out defending against the opposition. 

Fitzgerald and the Devils management took note of this and made their move, bringing in Brett Pesce and Brenden Dillon from free agency. Last Year, Brett Pesce earned himself a +2.0 net rating with a +2.5 defense rating and a -0.5 offense rating. Pesce’s +2.0 puts him right around the top 75% of defensemen in the league, and his defensive score is in the 86th percentile. He is an excellent defensive defenseman.

Brenden Dillon was also a positive player last year, earning a +0.8 net rating, +2.6 defense rating, and -1.8 offense rating. Like Pesce, Dillon is an above-average defender who is not as concerned about the offensive side of the game. 

Out of the nine players who played any time on defense for the Devils last year, only two had a positive defense rating: Santeri Hatakka, with +0.2, and Cal Foote, with +0.5. None of the full-time defensemen on the team had a positive defense rating. Adding two players who rate out in the 86th percentile or better on the defensive side of the game will be team-altering.

Not only will the Devils now have a couple of players with a positive defensive impact, but the defensive unit as a whole will be much more balanced. Fitzgerald has shifted gears into championship mode, and in that spirit, he is no longer worried about amassing all of the “best” players he can.

Instead, he is trying to find the right players to create a balanced team that will be better than the individual parts that make it up. 

With the additions of Pesce and Dillon and hopefully a bounceback season from Jonas Siegenthaler, the Devils should have three defenders who post positive ratings on the defensive side of the game.

Sheldon Keefe will be able to pair this trio with three defenders who all had positive offense ratings last year: Dougie Hamilton, Luke Hughes, and Simon Nemec. The Devils will have a defense with above-average players in both aspects of the game. 

It is unclear how good the Devils' defense will be next year. The addition of Jacob Markstrom will make any judgment of performance difficult, just as this year's goaltending made most of the defensive numbers look worse than they likely were.

However, it is clear that this team has a trio of offensively gifted defensemen who now have defensive specialists to support them during the entire game.

The team’s defense has improved drastically, and it is exciting to see Fitzgerald be so focused on making this team a championship-worthy group.  

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