GDT: Avalanche @ Devils 7:00 PM MSG+

[NJDfan1711]

1 hour ago, jagknife said:

He's made a nice career for himself, but the fact he keeps getting 20+ minutes/avg is not going to do him any favors as the season goes on. Endurance was an issue last year and yet here we are already.

To be fair, there's really not a clear leader in TOI for our defensemen.  Vatanen is getting about a minute and a half more than Greene on average, which is about an extra shift or two, and Mueller and Severson are both about the same, at about a minute and a half or so less than Greene.  Butcher and Lovejoy are quite a bit lower than those 4, and while I'd like to see Butcher eventually get the lion's share of Greene's time, we can't really put him and Lovejoy together on the same line, as I think that would be too much of a liability.  

Most teams are able to ice 4 pretty solid defensemen, and usually have 1 or 2 weaker ones, and I think that's exactly where we are right now too - we just have to balance it out so that we don't have a single point of failure, per se.

Butcher and Vatanen appear to be getting the bulk of the PP time, with Hall usually playing the point alongside one of them, so I believe most of Greene's minutes are coming during 5 on 5, so there's probably not much else we can take away from him at the moment.

[NJDevils1214]

I have faith Noesen is going to pull it together, but really no denying the start to his season has been ROUGH. 

[MadDog2020]

9 hours ago, NJDevils1214 said:

I have faith Noesen is going to pull it together, but really no denying the start to his season has been ROUGH. 

The Nose has been congested.