Who is the New Jersey Devils' best rookie?

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Today’s post was written by C.J. TURTORO. You can find him on Twitter @CJTDevil.

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It’s been well-reported that the New Jersey Devils roster is now the youngest in the NHL, propelled by a forward group that has a 26 year-old (Andreas Johnsson), a 25-year-old (Miles Wood), and then a bunch of people who would probably need chaperones if they wanted to rent a house for Spring Break.

One of the rookies has been in the Calder conversation ever since a near-historic start to the season. Ty Smith screamed out of the gate with points in the first five games of his career. Colorado phenom Cale Makar did it last season, but before that, only two dmen had done it since 1925 (Zidlicky ‘03, Murphy ‘80).

Smith probably won’t win the Calder with guys like Kirill Kaprizov and Nick Robertson putting up much better counting stats, but it’s recently come under question if he’s even the best rookie on the team.

In particular, Yegor Sharangovich and Janne Kuokkanen have served as wingers alongside Jack Hughes and become one of the most efficient top lines in the league in terms of scoring chances (9th in the NHL in MoneyPuck’s xG).

But it doesn’t even end there. 

After serving as an injury fill-in, Mikhail Maltsev has been the best Devil at getting off shots, firing a team-leading 17 per hour at 5-on-5 play; and drawing penalties, putting opponents in the box a team-leading 1.2 times per hour.

Just behind him on that penalty list (and just ahead of Jack Hughes) is Nick Merkley, who also leads the team in penalty rate differential. In just 260 minutes, Merkley has drawn five penalties and taken none.

Even more impressively, though, is his point production. Not only does he leads active Devils in 5v5 scoring rate with over 2 points an hour, he is nestled between Nathan Mackinnon and Connor McDavid for 2nd in the NHL in primary assist rate. I mean…that literally just sounds like I’m lying to you.

And, while he’s not put up those cartoonish point rates, the rookie with, perhaps, the most mature 200-foot game is Nathan Bastian. He leads active Devils in terms of his impact on goal differential. He has been an invaluable physical presence and an effective penalty killer on a team that has almost none of either.

Which of these guys is the most valuable when including all aspects of their game? Well, as a starting point, let’s look at their performance in value metrics like GAR and xGAR via Evolving-Hockey.

Interestingly, Ty Smith is bringing up the rear in both of these metrics. He has been worth the fewest goals above a replacement-level player despite logging 100-600 more minutes than the other rookies. In xGAR, which prioritizes shots more than goals, he’s actually considered sub-replacement.

In the beginning of the season, I wrote an “early thoughts” piece where I talked about how people were being inconsistent with how they evaluated Tennyson and Smith -- both of them were playing terrible defense but having their results propped up by fortunate shooting. I hedged back on that a month later because the Smith-Severson pairing had been just so dominant.

Now that we’ve had some time to see both of them in a variety of circumstances, the regression models that produce these GAR values have determined that Severson was moreso responsible for the success of that pairing.

A cursory glance at their performance together and apart seems to support that as Severson’s results are much better despite tougher usage. All this adds up to him having possibly the worst claim to the title of “best rookie” of anyone on the list in terms of on-ice impact. 

Kuokkanen takes the total GAR title thanks, in part, to being one of the only effective NJ players on the man-advantage, but also by being the least bad defensively at even-strength.

Bastian and Merkley are tops in terms of value per hour -- Merkley buoyed by the penalty/point performance, Bastian by penalty-killing and some fortunate teammate shooting.

Sharangovich takes the xGAR title thanks to the best offensive impact of the group (worth +0.4 xGs) and his +9 penalty differential (trailing only Hughes’s +17).

However, the runaway in terms of per-hour xGAR is Maltsev, who lags behind only Sharangovich in EV offense, but surpasses him in penalty value and EV defense. 

So, basically every player has a claim to “best rookie.” Ty Smith is probably the consensus. Kuokkanen’s got the highest cumulative goal value. Merkley and Bastian have him beat per hour, though. And if we value shots and chances over goals then Sharangovich takes the cumulative award and Maltsev becomes the per-hour champ. 

So who is the best Devils’ rookie?

 *shrug emoji* 

I don’t know. Pick one. Here’s what my approach would be.

I think that Bastian’s offensive results are the flukiest stat here so his claim seems weakest.

Sharangovich’s defensive results feel a bit off to me. I think that the regression is probably giving too much of the xGA credit to Kuokkanen and not enough to him -- over a full 82-game season that might have self-corrected.

Merkley’s GAR rate seems legit given his production and penalty rate, but the small sample certainly makes me less confident in him, as does his defense which is maligned by both smart and dumb stats -- Devils allow 3.92 goals per hour with him on ice.

Maltsev feels the most legit of the small-sample guys given the consistency of the GAR, xGAR, on-ice impacts, and point production.

And Ty Smith’s defensive responsibilities have been so vast that I think he’s probably absorbing some of the negative value from the generic failure of the Devils as a team in these metrics, but I don’t know that it’s an underrating enough to close the chasm between him and his peers here. 

Considering all that, Sharangovich takes the crown in my opinion. But I’m probably wrong. The important takeaway is that the Devils have a half-dozen skaters that all have a claim to being the best rookie and that is not something any other NHL team can say. 

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numbers via Evolving-Hockey.com and MoneyPuck.com