Some Devils news and notes as we get closer to hockey's return:
- Christopher Boucher of sportlogiq.com - a website dedicated to new wave tracking and hockey analytics - has been releasing some of the new numbers he and his staff have at their disposal and Devils defenseman Andy Greene fared extremely well in one of the stats.
Current Top-5 lowest defensive-zone turnover-rates among #NHL d-men tracked: Jones, Josi, Leddy, Greene, Streit #SportlogiQ -low is good.
— Christopher Boucher (@Chris_LogiQ) September 7, 2015That's a pretty good crop of blue liners Greene is grouped in with. It's not exactly a surprise that Greene is on that list, either, as he's one of the smarter players in the league, is careful with the puck and rarely forces a play that isn't there.
- My hockeybuzz colleague Ryan Wilson recently ranked Metropolitan Division goaltenders from best to worst and Cory Schneider came in No. 2 on his list (behind Henrik Lundqvist). Obviously it's just one man's opinion but it's nice to see Schneider getting credit from those that follow the sport closely. Schneider has an impressive .928 career save percentage at even-strength and has been playing great hockey for years now. It's nice to see someone take notice of that.
- Speaking of Schneider his potential replacement (way down the road) Mackenzie Blackwood played his first full game of the preseason last night against the Owen Sound Attack.
He wasn't tested early - he stopped 5-5 in the 1st period - but that certainly changed as the game progressed. When all was said and done Blackwood stopped 31-34 in Barrie's 4-3 shootout victory. He made some big saves throughout - particularly on a long Owen Sound 5 vs 3 - and looked comfortable playing the puck.
Through one and a half preseason games Blackwood has stopped 42-46. That's a .913 save percentage. While that doesn't seem overly impressive it's worth noting that the OHL is a higher scoring league than the NHL, for example, and that only five starts posted a better save percentage last season.
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