New Personnel, Practice Will Improve PK I BLOG

The New Jersey Devils have aspirations of fighting for a playoff spot late in the 2021-22 season, or at the very least taking a large progressive step as a team. If they are to accomplish the former, they'll need to improve in all facets of their game, including the penalty kill.
In the 2020-21 campaign, the Devils finished last in the league (31st) with a 71-percent successful kill rate. Now, there were many reasons for that result.
For one, there were many new players working on the kill, including first-timers Yegor Sharangovich, Michael McLeod, Nathan Bastian and Mikhail Maltsev. Those young players were getting their first taste of killing and had the normal mistakes and learning curve to be expected.
Second was the lack of practice. With the two-week COVID-19 shutdown, the Devils were forced to play four games in six nights every week from February until the end of the season in mid-May. With rest being the priority, practice time was cut and the PK never could get its due.

And last, the Devils were forced to play within their own division for the entire season - the toughest division in hockey. New Jersey had to face Washington (3rd best NHL power play, 24.8%), Pittsburgh (4th, 23.7%), Boston (10th, 21.9%) and NY Rangers (14th, 20.7%) eight times during the year. Those are some dangerous power plays to face down that many times in a single season.
"Some of our young guys got picked apart, a little surprised by some of the plays,"
head coach Lindy Ruff said
. "We tweaked our system a little bit. We tweaked it late in the year, which seemed to be good for our guys. We just want to get off to a better start."
The Devils penalty kill should be immensely improved this season. They'll be playing every team in the NHL this season, which means they won't be facing as many deadly man-advantage units on a such a regular basis. And with the normal flow of a season (knock on wood), the team will have plenty of time to practice. In fact, it's been a main area of emphasis from Day 1 of training camp.
"If we practice it more (it will help)," Ruff said. "We worked walking through the scenarios and how we want to play the different scenarios.
"We're going to have hiccups. We'll have hiccups in the preseason and teams are going to score goals. We'll try some personnel that can maybe be a difference for us."
Among those personnel will be returning PKers Sharangovich and McLeod. But, additionally the club is looking at other options up front, such as captain Nico Hischier or Pavel Zacha, each killed a little bit last season, Miles Wood or player tryouts Freddie Gauthier, Mark Jankowski and Jimmy Vesey.
"We want to see if there are players that can help us," Ruff said. "Can Miles Wood become a penalty killer with his speed and quickness? A Jankowski, Gauthier, Jimmy Vesey?"
While they experiment with different forward combinations, the defensive side is more solidified and will also feature a couple newcomers in Ryan Graves and Dougie Hamilton. Teamed with returners Jonas Siegenthaler, playing in his first full season with New Jersey, and Damon Severson. The presence of those big men (Hamilton, 6-foot-6; Graves, 6-5; Siegenthaler, 6-2; Severson, 6-2) was an obvious asset in the early days of camp.
"What I've noticed (in camp) is the size of our D," Ruff said. "The reach, the sticks. There wasn't a lot of time. We were able to take some time and space away. We didn't give the units a lot of time."