Second will be the quality of depth that other teams get out of their forwards. Most of the teams in the playoffs do not have one-line attacks: the best playoff teams, and the ones to watch out for, are those with great second and third lines.But what about fourth lines?The traditional model of a fourth line is that of a more defensive, physical group. They may be more proficient at forechecking, and most of their goals will be of the greasy type.

Deflections, crashes, and the like account for most of what people would consider to be traditional fourth line offensive contributions. Many hockey coaches over the past several years have adopted a model where these lines play more often. The concept of “rolling four lines” theoretically leads to more rested players and more sustainable play throughout the game.There is a big problem with that for the New Jersey Devils.

As every tuned-in hockey fan knows, they have one of the best top six center duos in the league in Nico Hischier with Jack Hughes. But what some may not have caught onto yet is that they have a third center who has been undersold as a bottom six center in Cody Glass who has shown signs of possessing top six capability. Just over a month ago, I wrote about why Glass and Arseny Gritsyuk deserved increased roles on the team, and I said there:Glass is not producing dangerous shots like a low-end defensive third-line center, he is producing shots like a high-end two-way second line center while playing low-end third-line minutes.

The only Devils who are better at producing center-lane dangerous shots at a higher rate than Cody Glass are Nico Hischier and Timo Meier, who have 70 and 61 inner-slot shots, respectively, compared to Jack Hughes’s 42 and Glass’s 37. Of those players, only Cody Glass converts on those chances above league average…Glass could easily make it so the fourth line only has to play a few minutes each night if he played more at five-on-five, and he has shown time and time again that he is effective on special teams when given the opportunity.The question that Sunny Mehta needs to answer this offseason is not which players can do more with 10 or 12 minutes per game.

Replacing Maxim Tsyplakov with a better fourth line version is not going to tip the scales, sending the Devils from being a lottery team to a Stanley Cup finalist. Instead, Mehta should be looking for three guys to play 16, 17, 18 or more minutes each night behind the presently-established top six. We have already been able to identify Cody Glass and Arseny Gritsyuk as guys who can play to larger roles, but there is still a missing piece.

Is it Lenni Hameenaho? Maybe, but he needs to show quite a bit of offensive growth in year two, and I do not think the Devils should rely on him making that jump. To Hameenaho’s credit, though, he was dealt a rough hand with some of the highest defensive usage rates on the team despite his rookie status.

The Devils also have Stefan Noesen in recovery, but I would wait to see what he looks like in camp before giving him that much ice time.But my vision for Cody Glass getting nearly as much ice time as Hischier and Hughes relies on that third line becoming a group that is difficult to play against on each end. Last July, I wrote about the penalty kill and how top offensive players like Nico Hischier could be relied on less in favor of depth players with stronger defensive metrics. This part is of note:If the Devils’ top penalty killers remain Hischier, Bratt, and Mercer, and two of those players remain ineffective penalty killers, the Devils are wasting their minutes.

Over the course of a game or season, how much more fatigued is Nico Hischier because he takes top penalty killing matchups? Taking him out of that role might hurt his chances of winning a Selke award, but there are either two roads there. Either Nico improves as a penalty killer and actually puts himself into that conversation, or the team pulls back on those minutes to put him in more offensive situations, where he thrives most.Sheldon Keefe went in the opposite direction here, playing Nico Hischier more than any other Devils forward on the penalty kill. Per Natural Stat Trick, the Devils’ results with Nico on the ice on the penalty kill were decent, but not nearly as good as they were when Lindy Ruff was behind the bench.2022-23: 2:07 PK TOI/GP,