Penalty Kill Sees Significant Improvement from Last Year | FEATURE

The Devils penalty kill was one of the top areas the team wanted to improve upon after finishing 31st out of 31 teams in the NHL last year. Now, several months in to the 2021-22 campaign, the penalty kill is in the middle of the pack, ranking 15th and killing off 80.4% of the penalties it faces. This has been a huge improvement for the Devils and their penalty kill has come up strong in various man-down situations.
"First, I think we have some continuity amongst the players we've been trying to use," Devils head coach Lindy Ruff said following Tuesday's practice. "We've added a couple defensemen (Dougie Hamilton, Ryan Graves, Jonas Siegenthaler) with bigger and better reach. Structure we've changed a few things on how we approach some of the plays."
Another area of improvement that Ruff and Devils center Michael McLeod credited to improved success is with the team's reads while playing shorthanded.
"I think we're just making better reads and have a better understanding on when to pressure and not overthink things," said McLeod, the team's top PK forward. "It's a work in progress but we're going to continue to get better and keep working on having good sticks and maybe having more shorthanded action."

McLeod has the most shorthanded minutes per game among the club's forwards with 2:21 clocked this season. McLeod is one of the key players returning from last year's kill. In addition, the team has added several other players to add depth with these special teams units.
Forward Jimmy Vesey,
who signed a one-year contract off of a professional tryout
, has become a fixture on this special teams unit. He's scored two shorthanded goals this season, while rookie Dawson Mercer and forward Janne Kuokkanen have each added one.
The Devils traded for Siegenthaler late in the 2020-21 season and then for Graves during the offseason. Both defensemen have wracked up serious penalty kill minutes and have become staples in the Devils defensive core.
"(Siegenthaler) is great at shutting down plays, has a really good stick, great at killing plays and getting the puck down the ice," McLeod said. "He's really good at gaps also when they're entering the zone, so it makes it harder for them when we have good back pressure with me or Vesey or whoever's on.
"Vesey has a good stick, he gets on pucks when expected, gets it out of the zone, and he's looking to score too at the same time so it makes it fun going out there and he's a great killer."
Although there have been great improvements and the results are showing, there are still some ways this team can improve their shorthanded play.
"To continue to realize what the other team is trying to do and taking away their strength. I think that's the best thing you could possibly do with any penalty killing," Ruff said. "Usually a team tries to get it to a certain person, a certain person shooting it, and I'd like to see us continue to focus in on taking away the other team's strength."