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New Jersey Devils: Ilya Kovalchuk And The Quest For a Center

June 23, 2013, 11:30 AM ET [43 Comments]
Todd Cordell
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Since being acquired by the New Jersey Devils in 2010, Ilya Kovalchuk hasn't produced the numbers we've been accustomed to seeing throughout his career.

While his numbers have still been impressive, the decline in point totals is in large part because the Devils play a much more defensive style of game than Atlanta did when Kovalchuk was there. It's also because the Devils have yet to find the right combination of players for him to play with in order to produce the way he can.

For a variety of different reasons, Kovalchuk has yet to find a center and linemates in general who he can play with on a regular basis and find success. Whether it be due to injury (Travis Zajac was unavailable almost all season in 2011-12), or someone else struggling, Kovalchuk has been moved all around the lineup.

He's yet to find the consistency and familiarity in linemates, especially at center, and I think that has really hindered his production.

In Kovalchuk's first full season as a Devil (2010-11), Kovalchuk's center was Zajac for most of the year. In 2011-12, Zajac missed almost the entire season forcing Kovalchuk to play with a different center - mainly Adam Henrique. Most recently, Kovalchuk found himself playing at least 150 of his 590 5 vs. 5 minutes with three different centers: Andrei Loktionov, Zajac and Henrique.

While there is still plenty of time in the off-season to make changes, I'm going to assume that Loktionov, Zajac and Henrique will be the top-3 centers on the roster come fall.

Which one will play with Kovalchuk on the top line? That's unknown and will remain that way until the 2013-14 season begins. Even then, Pete DeBoer can, and probably will, juggle the lines within a short period of time.

Who should center Kovalchuk, at least to start? That's something that can be determined now.

I did some digging through advanced stats and managed to track how Ilya Kovalchuk performs with Loktionov, Zajac, and Henrique and how each of those centers performs without Kovalchuk.

First we'll look at how the Devils top centerman perform with Kovalchuk. For clarification purposes, TOI means time on ice, as you'd expect. GF20 is goals for per 20 minutes of 5 vs. 5. GA20 is goals against per 20 minutes of 5 vs. 5. Lastly, as stated in the chart, you'll see the possession percentage.

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As you can see, Zajac has the largest body of work playing on Kovalchuk's line. The Devils goals for rate when Zajac and Kovalchuk are together isn't all that impressive given the caliber of players playing. The goals against rate is incredible, though. Essentially, when Zajac and Kovalchuk were on the ice together the Devils didn't allow goals. It rarely happened.

Zajac is a very good defensive player and Kovalchuk is improving year by year, but it's quite clear they had luck on their side. Why? Well, possession between the Devils and their opposition was basically split 50/50 with Zajac and Kovalchuk out there, which means their opponents had their share of chances as well. For their to be such a significant gap between goals for and against while only holding possession of the puck for slightly over 50% is quite incredible.

From looking at the chart, it's clear Loktionov and Kovalchuk were a dynamic offensive duo. When playing on the same line they averaged over a goal per 20 minutes of 5 vs. 5 which equates to over three goals per 60 minutes. Impressive.

The issue with that combo is defense. Despite holding possession at just about a 60/40 rate, they were on the ice for over a goal against per 20 minutes, which is not good. What makes it worse is that the goals against rate was higher than the goals for rate. That's hard to do when you're scoring so much and have possession so often.

Lastly, we have Henrique. Take a quick glance at the chart and you'll see he and Kovalchuk were a mess together. The Devils scored .393 goals per 20 minutes of 5 vs. 5 when the two played on the same line, which equates to about 1.20 goals per 60 minutes. That's abysmal when you factor in the talent on the line. They were also a complete mess defensively and were without the puck more than they were with it. I can't explain the struggles, but it's clear that the Henrique-Kovalchuk combo didn't work last season without the 3rd wheel, Zach Parise.

Now, how did these players do without Kovalchuk?

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Despite holding possession for over 60% of the time, the Devils couldn't score when Zajac was on the ice without Kovalchuk. Zajac's goals against rate was also much higher without Kovalchuk, surprisingly, even though the Devils had the puck more when Zajac wasn't playing with Kovalchuk than when he was.

Given the Devils injury problems and lack of depth on the wing, I'll pin the lack of scoring despite high possession numbers on that. How often can you score when you're playing with noted superstars Steve Sullivan, Matt D'Agostini and Alexei Ponikarovsky? Answer: not often, regardless of how much you have the puck. Zajac's 416 minutes without Kovalchuk is a large enough sample size to prove that.

With Loktionov, the possession numbers stayed pretty much the same. The goals against is just over 1/3 of what it was and, while the goals for took a pretty big hit, he had a positive goals for / against split when he wasn't playing with No. 17. The sample size is about the same as playing with Kovalchuk, too, which says a lot.

Adam Henrique played almost 400 5 vs. 5 minutes with linemates not named Kovalchuk and had a lot of success doing so. His goals for per 20 minutes doubled without Kovalchuk, his goals against per 20 minutes is less than 1/3 of what it was and his possession numbers jumped from less than 50% to over 60%. For whatever reason, Henrique could not do anything offensively nor defensively when playing with Kovalchuk last year. That's pretty surprising given the two played so much together, and played well, just one year ago.

After taking all of this into consideration, who should center Kovalchuk next season? If you go by best goals for / against splits, the stats say Zajac should.

What say you, Devils fans?

**

Notes on Loktionov's new contract, Patrik Elias, fancy stats and more.

Brendan Ross and myself rank the top-60 prospects and more in TheHockeyGuys 2013 NHL Draft Guide.

I rank the top-10 forwards and top-5 defenseman in this year's draft.

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