On Thursday night, the New Jersey Devils lost their fourth overtime (OT) game of the season in five tries. Jack Hughes tried to cut through two defenders and lost the puck, leading to an odd-man rush and the eventual Sam Carrick winner.
After the game, Hughes took full responsibility, saying, “Two very not good plays by myself, so that’s frustrating. You know, it’s not really a team thing, it’s kind of a personal thing. I definitely want to take back two of those plays.”
While the back-breaking goal on Thursday specifically was Hughes’ fault, it certainly wasn’t the only good chance the New York Rangers had in the extra session. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Devils have given up 13 scoring chances in 3-on-3 situations, averaging out to 2.6 per overtime. Per minute, that’s the fifth-worst rate in the NHL.
Of the 12 Devils who have touched the ice during 3-on-3, eight of them have been on the ice for more chances against per minute than J. Hughes, so he should be one of the last to receive the overall blame. On paper, this is a team that should dominate in OT and has previously. Over the two previous seasons, they went 18-13 in 3-on-3 scenarios, meaning their success rate has decreased from 58% to 20% (albeit, a small sample).
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The Hockey Writers asked head coach Sheldon Keefe about their struggles and he gave a pretty detailed response: “I think we take too many chances. We’ve gotta talk more about that and clean that up now. Generally speaking, overtime is a coin-flip type of deal, and with the losses we’ve had, we’ve had lots of good looks (but) haven’t scored, and then they’ve countered. But, you know, I think we at times force them a little bit…we haven’t spent a lot of time on it quite honestly. And we don’t go into games thinking we’re going to get into overtime and we haven’t been there very much, but clearly, you see again here tonight that there’s some things we’ve got to clean up.”
It’s an improvement in itself that the Devils have dramatically increased their ability to play with a third period lead, boasting a 20-0-1 record when carrying one. Thus, they haven’t been to overtime as often as other teams.
But as we know, points are at a premium in today’s NHL and every single one matters. The Devils are doing themselves a disservice if they don’t remedy this; they’re far too talented to keep sacrificing the additional point.
