New Jersey Devils: Analyzing Devante Smith-Pelley
Devante Smith-Pelly started his career with the New Jersey Devils in a strong manner, but can he continue to produce in his second season with the team?
What’s up with Devante Smith-Pelly? He was traded from Montreal for Stefan Matteau late last season and from the moment he put on the Devils uniform it seemed that everything he touched turned to gold. In 18 games for the Devils last season, he managed to put up 13 points, averaging to about 0.72 points per game. This is quite the upgrade from the 0.227 points per game that he had in Montreal during the first portion of the same season. His dramatic increase in production raises a few questions, to start: What caused this increase?
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There are many factors that can impact a player’s performance on a team, the environment, his line-mates, and especially how the coach handles the player. In the case of Devante, it seemed that coach Hynes was keen on giving him a chance with some top line minutes. He immediately was thrown into the first and second lines seeing ice-time with the likes of Adam Henrique. In fact, his average ice time on the Devils is approximately 4 minutes higher than it was on Montreal, and 2 and a half minutes higher than on Anaheim. That ice time was not unearned though, as right from his first game in a New Jersey uniform he was able to put up a 2 point night in an exciting overtime victory against the Nashville Predators.
Another factor that needs to be considered is that on his older teams he was playing a significantly different role than he is on the Devils. Since joining New Jersey, he has tallied 20 hits in 18 games averaging at about 1.11 hits per game. In Montreal, he held an average of 2.16 hits per game, and in Anaheim it was even higher at 2.42. Perhaps the role that the other coaches had him playing wasn’t suiting his style of play, because it was shown clearly since he’s joined the Devils that he is very capable of providing offense.
The other key question that needs to be discussed is: Can Smith-Pelly sustain this level of production for the upcoming season? Arguably the most important statistic that needs to be analyzed in order to answer this question is his shooting percentage. In his 18 games for New Jersey, Smith-Pelly held a career high 23.5% shooting percentage. This is ludicrously high compared to his shooting percentage on his previous teams, which was 8.0 in Montreal and 8.2 in Anaheim. This is where things start looking less than desirable for the Devils. It is extremely unlikely that he manages to sustain such a high shooting percentage, and for that reason it is very likely that his numbers will regress a bit. How much, remains to be seen but it is likely that Devante will still be a key player on the Devils even if his offense falls a bit.
So where does he fall? Devante Smith-Pelly has the potential to be a key player on this team for a long time but not necessarily in the same role that he was playing last season. Now that the team has a stronger offensive core, that means that Smith-Pelly will not be relied upon so heavily for offense and it is likely that he will end up playing in a secondary scoring role. He is a very versatile player and he proved that at the end of last season, where he became one of the key point producers on the team during the final stretch, but he is also very capable of being a checking forward, playing on a third or fourth line and helping to shut down the opposing team. Due to the team’s lack of right wing depth, it is also possible that he returns to the same role he played last season if players like Kyle Palmieri or Beau Bennett get injured.
Nonetheless, while the final stretch of last season was phenomenal and he was a great player, Smith-Pelly still has to prove in this upcoming season that it wasn’t just a fluke and he can still be a key piece of this team moving forward. If he does prove to be one of those key pieces, and the rest of the team comes together as they are expected to, it is very possible that we will have hockey in New Jersey in late April, for the first time since 2012.
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