I recently took a look at how the Devils fared at 5 vs 5 with each forward on or off the ice in 2013-14. With so much time remaining in the off-season, I decided I'd do the same for defense.
As I said in the last post, I chose to use 5 vs 5 data as most of every game is played in that situation, and over the course of a season that provides us with the largest sample size.
Below I tabled the 5 vs 5 goals for/against data for each of the Devils defensemen last season, so you can paint a better picture of just how good or bad they fared with certain players on the ice.
A few notes:
- It's important to remember that Andy Greene played more minutes than anyone else on a low-scoring team, so naturally his goals for/against numbers wouldn't be great. That holds true even more so when you factor in that he played by far the toughest competition among defensemen on the team. A -5 differential is actually pretty solid given the Devils scoring struggles, and that he went up against the league's best for almost half of a game on a nightly basis.
- To a lesser extent the same can be said for Mark Fayne. Most nights he spent the majority of his minutes on a pairing with Greene going against top competition, so it's tough to have a positive differential on a team that doesn't score.
- Eric Gelinas has made his fair share of mistakes defensively, but it's pretty interesting that a guy known for being a defensive liability has a positive differential. It wasn't vs great competition, but when you come out positive at full strength and are the league's most efficient power play defenseman, you should be a regular.
- Small sample size, but Larsson's differential was third best among those tabled. It will be interesting to see how he fares over a larger span as a regular in 2014-15.
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