Brian Dumoulin Serving as an Effective Siegenthaler Replacement
The Devils had a massive void at LD once Jonas Siegenthaler went down with a long-term injury, but Dumoulin has proved to be a solid stand-in.
The New Jersey Devils acquired defenseman Brian Dumoulin last Thursday, on the second-to-last day of the NHL Trade Deadline. At the time, I thought the package sent to Anaheim was much too hefty — a 2026 second-round pick and 2024 third-round draftee Herman Träff felt like a lot to give up for an expiring UFA who wasn’t all that great this season. To be clear, I still generally feel this way. If the cost of acquisition for Blackhawks forward Ryan Donato were a second-round pick, as it was rumored to be, the Devils probably would have been better off shipping that out for him instead of Dumoulin. Plus, Herman Träff has legitimate NHL upside as a third-line forechecking winger with some skilled grit.
I’ve come around a bit on Dumoulin, though.
In his first few games with the Devils, he’s been legitimately very good. He looks poised and confident in both zones, being unafraid to challenge high-octane competition defensively while providing the team with underrated passing within the offensive zone. For a team missing a defensive stalwart on the left side, he has been a breath of fresh air, albeit in just a four-game sample size. Some of it has been deployment-oriented — the only defensemen garnering fewer 5v5 minutes per game are Šimon Nemec, who has been locked in the doghouse (and rightfully so) for this past stretch of hockey, and Dennis Cholowski, who has played just two games as a Devil himself. In his relatively little time on ice per game (14:49 at 5v5), though, Dumoulin is absolutely crushing it.
(Re-)Unlocking Johnathan Kovacevic
I wrote recently about how Johnathan Kovacevic was a bit of a Jonas Siegenthaler merchant, in that his strengths as a player were so clearly brought out when playing alongside No. 71 but he generally struggled playing with just about everyone else once Siegenthaler went down with injury. The one player Kovacevic didn’t get caved in with was fellow defensive defenseman Brett Pesce.
Enter Dumoulin, who has taken a sort of Siegenthaler-esque role and re-unlocked Kovacevic, who is playing at his highest level once more.
The vast, vast majority of Dumoulin’s ice time (55:51 of his 59:24 at 5v5) has come alongside Kovacevic, and the two have formed the sort of Siegenthaler-Kovacevic-lite pairing that the Devils were so desperately yearning for since Siegenthaler’s absence.
Again, it’s a small, four-game sample size, so the jury is still out on whether or not it’s sustainable, but with the Dumoulin-Kovacevic pairing on the ice, the Devils are controlling 58.22% of the expected goal share (xGF%) with legitimate two-way dominance. Among defense pairs on the team who have logged at least 10 minutes together since the trade deadline, that pairing has the second-best expected goals against per 60 minutes (xGA/60) with 2.38 while sporting the second-best expected goals for per 60 minutes (xGF/60), with 3.31, according to NaturalStatTrick.
HockeyViz has them as even more dominant. According to that, the Dumoulin-Kovacevic pairing is allowing just 2.03 xGA/60, 17% better than league average. You can see where specifically they are and are not allowing chances below:
Offensively, the two models align pretty well, with HockeyViz having the pair sporting an xGF/60 of 3.28, which is an astounding 35% better than league average:
You can see in the shot map that the vast, vast majority of chances for the Devils when Dumoulin and Kovacevic are on the ice are coming right around the net, which meshes with the eye test and the stylistic play of the two defensemen. Neither one is particularly heavy on the shooting, with Kovacevic being the shooter of the pair (Dumoulin is attempting shots at a team-low 4.05 attempts per hour). They are, however, effective as a duo at prolonging possessions, using their bodies to seal off potential breakouts and keep the puck in the zone.
It also helps that over 40% of their 5v5 ice time has been alongside the Meier-Hischier-Noesen line, which has largely hemmed in their opponents as well. Even still, despite the favorable deployment in teammates, they’ve also matched up against the opposition’s best: their most TOI has come against the Foerster-Cates-Konecny and Voronkov-Fantilli-Marchenko lines, the respective top lines of the Flyers and Blue Jackets. They’ve managed to dominate in both zones regardless.
Beyond the xG rates, the Devils are crushing opponents across the board with this pair on. On a per-hour basis, are out-attempting their opposition 61.24-48.34, outshooting their opposition 32.23-26.86, out-chancing their opposition 35.45-24.71, and out-high-danger-chancing their opposition 18.26-11.82. By all accounts, they’ve been dynamite.
In the grand scheme of things, this tells me more about Kovacevic’s game than Dumoulin’s and does have me a little concerned about the former’s five-year contract extension. With each passing day, Kovacevic profiles more and more as a passenger defenseman, reliant on playing with partners who are defensively apt in their own right. While this isn’t an issue if the Devils “shelter” him by playing him with Siegenthaler exclusively next season, it is a bit concerning that he can’t find that level of play when alongside someone with offensive juice.
Regardless, Dumoulin has proved to be that replacement. Coming into the team, he had been one of the better shutdown defensemen available, so this isn’t necessarily surprising. I definitely did not think the two would mesh so well, though, and they’ll be an asset in the postseason for shutting things down in tight games.
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I think Dumo has earned two (2) gentle kisses on the nose so far this season