What's wrong with Timo Meier?
An Investigation into what's going on in New Jersey
At last year’s NHL trade deadline, the New Jersey Devils added one of the league’s premier power forwards, Timo Meier, at minimal cost to the team’s roster or long-term future. It was a coup at face value, adding size and offense to an already talented group bubbling over with potential in the midst of the team’s best season in more than a decade.
Down the stretch of the regular season last year, Meier posted a respectable but not overwhelming 14 points in 21 games. Then in the postseason, he earned 4 points in 11 games. Counting stats are not the only thing that matters, but they are how the casual fan and national media evaluate players. Coming off of a lukewarm but decent acclimation process and a second round exit, the Devils opted to push some chips into the middle and maximize their existing group.
During the summer of 2023, the Devils eventually agreed to terms with Meier, a gaudy 8-year, $8.8 million per season deal with full no-movement protection from 2024 through the end of the 2028 season. On paper, this all made perfect sense for a team emerging from a long rebuilding period. Meier was the final touch to a forward group littered with high upside talent that hadn’t reached its full potential yet.
Unfortunately for the Devils, their progress as a franchise hasn’t been linear. For much of that ten year dark age, sans the Taylor Hall Hart Trophy year, they were making shrewd moves but for whatever reason, it never panned out. After last season, it seemed like they were finally out of the dark, and instead, they pulled a u-turn.
At the time of writing, the Devils are 30-25-4 and five points off a playoff spot. Last year, the team had 83 standings points on this day and were firmly entrenched in second place of the Metropolitan Division. There are several factors working against the Devils this season and fueling this under performance: Poor coaching, injuries, league-worst goaltending and underperforming players.
Amongst those players struggling to find their footing is Meier, someone who’s flirted with the elite tier for each of the last few seasons. Through 44 games, Meier has recorded 26 points and is playing almost a full minute less than last season. To understand what’s plaguing the Swiss forward, it’s worth analyzing several areas of his game.
It should be noted that there is ample speculation that Meier has played injured for a majority of this season after missing 14 games earlier in the season with a lower body injury.
Usage
Before addressing tangible results, it’s important to contextualize what a player is being asked to do. Just because Meier was successful in San Jose doing one thing doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be as good doing something else for New Jersey. More than a full minute less of ice time – 17:47 in 2022-2023 to 16:43 this year – is not insignificant.
Of that minute less per game that Meier is playing this season, it’s almost entirely lost power play time. Last year, Meier averaged 2:55 of power play time whereas this year that number is down at 2:00 flat. Losing 55 seconds of man advantage time as a point producer is naturally going to cause a dip.
In Meier’s 21 regular season games last year, he only played less than Hughes, Hischier and Dawson Mercer.
So far, through the Devil’s 55 games, Meier’s most common center at five-on-five is Hughes at 136:43, then accused sex criminal Michael McLeod at 136:16 and lastly Hischier at 108:39. So at least on paper, Meier’s had ample opportunity to play with the team’s best centers and wings in the top six.
According to PuckIQ’s database, Meier is playing against elite players 29% of his ice time and getting a majority, 45%, against middle six forwards. In that ice time against middle six players, he’s generating 45% of the dangerous scoring chances – meaning the Devils aren’t getting the puck to good areas of the ice.
Lastly, the defensemen Meier is most commonly deployed with are Simon Nemec and Kevin Bahl. While Nemec may eventually become a quality NHL defenseman, he is still just 20-years-old and getting first real taste of the best league in the world. Bahl, in my opinion, is a size-only player who lacks the puck skills to drive offense in any meaningful way.
So, when it comes to deployment and usage, Meier is getting juggled all over the lineup and playing with a variety of wingers and defenseman who aren’t capable of tilting the ice in the Devils’ favor. It’s a fair critique to say that a player of Meier’s caliber shouldn’t need that much help to create offense with how talented he is. That said, there are several more factors to consider in understanding why Meier is underperforming.
Zone Entries and transition play (All Zone Stats via AllThreezones.com)
In understanding a player’s game, there are three tangible on ice components: offense, defense and transition. Think of transition play as the tendons and ligaments connecting a player’s game through the different spaces on the ice. Transition play is often what separates great from good players as it's a means of directly exerting influence on the game. Even if they can’t get their shot off, they can get to the offensive zone and exert pressure on the other team.
So starting at the team level, the Devils profile as a rush-based offense. That means they are looking to gain the zone with speed and create a scoring chance shortly after gaining the offensive blue line. As a team, the Devils generate 14.6 shots off of the rush per 60 minutes when the league average is 12.91.
But, before getting to the zone, it’s important to understand how the Devils get there in the first place. Being a team that creates a lot of scoring chances off of the rush, it would make sense that they are a carry the puck into the zone team as opposed to a dump and chase team. It’s pretty much impossible to be a quality rush offense team if you’re forced to dump the puck in and chase as opposed to carrying in with speed.
As a team, the Devils carry the puck into the offensive zone at the second highest rate of any team in the entire league (37.33 per 60), only trailing the Colorado Avalanches’ 37.91. And Meier himself is one of the better zone entry creators on the Devils, carrying the puck into the offensive zone 66.7 percent of the time. The one caveat to those strong carry numbers is that Meier gains the offensive zone a below-average amount of times per 60 minutes in relation to the rest of the league.
That means when the Devils are transitioning from defense to offense, at least when Meier is on the ice, they aren’t getting to the offensive zone as much as they probably should. That would be tied to transition play further down the line, meaning that the defensemen are failing to clear the zone with possession and the Devils are still leaving offense on the table.
But, what’s interesting is that even though Meier generates a below-average amount of zone entries, he still generates 3 zone entries per game that lead to a scoring chance. While this might seem esoteric and way deep in the weeds, it’s important to try and contextualize what isn’t working for Meier. As a starting point, knowing that the Devils don’t get to the offensive zone as much as they should, that tells us there is meat still on the bone.
In the offensive zone (All Zone Stats via AllThreezones.com)
Now that there’s an understanding that the Devils aren’t getting to offense with Meier on the ice as often as they should, that allows a better understanding of the flow of play. I tend to think of hockey’s phases on a flow chart, that at the base is transition which gets a player to offense or defense respectively and vice versa.
In the offensive zone, Meier is generating an above-average rate of both scoring chances and assists that lead to scoring chances. Taking it a step further, as an individual, Meier is creating an above-average rate of assists that lead to a dangerous scoring chance (1.035) as well as shots from a dangerous area (1.553). That said, last season, Meier was creating far more dangerous assists (2.051) at the expense of slightly fewer dangerous shots (1.368).
The starkest drop off in Meier’s underlying play is chance creation at large. Last year, Meier created shots (13.68) and passed to shots (15.04) at the second highest rate of any player on the team only behind Hughes. This season, Meier is making a pass leading to an assist 4.14 times per 60 and shooting 12.94 times per 60.
That, in conjunction with fewer zone entries and the linemates he’s been deployed with, leads me to believe Meier has less comfort with what he’s being asked to do and taking more of an onus on himself to shoot.
Using the NHL’s Edge data, we get confirmation that Meier isn’t in the offensive zone nearly enough. That’s just raw zone time too, nothing about scoring chances or quality – just being physically present in the offensive zone which the NHL tracks with GPS data.
Chance creation, individual vs line (Data via natural stat trick)
Now, going into the more conventional box car metrics, scoring chances for and against, high danger chances, expected goals and on ice shooting percentage, Meier’s production makes more sense.
ICF/60: Individual chances for per 60 - Any shot attempt (goals, shots on net, misses and blocks) by the player
IHCF/60: Individual high danger chances for per 60 - Any high danger scoring chance by the player
iXG/60: Individual expected goals per 60- The implied expected goals value of a player’s individual scoring chances
SH%: Shooting percentage A player’s goals divided by the number of shots on goal
We see an across-the-board drop off in all individual offensive production. That’s not a ton, but the dip of more than half a high danger chance per game is nothing to sneeze at. With fewer quality scoring chances per game, it’s ultimately more difficult to score goals consistently. High danger chances are by definition more valuable and easier to convert into goals.
That said, a player of Meier’s caliber, someone who’s shot above average across all situations for the bulk of his career should be able to compensate for a slight dip in quality of scoring chance with raw shooting talent.
However, the single biggest driver of Meier’s drop off, in my opinion, has been the play of his line as a collective.
The Devils are generating 9 fewer scoring chances, 4 fewer high danger chances and more than half an expected goal per 60 minutes of ice time when Meier is on the ice in comparison to last season. When looking visually, it’s striking how much more dangerous the team was last season with Meier on the ice.
In the offensive zone last year, the Devils were 33% more dangerous than league average when Meier was on the ice. That is a massive drop off to the current 7% above average. Those pockets of dark red around the net mouth are the most valuable type of scoring chance, one likely to result in a goal.
Last season’s Devils played at a breakneck pace with the defense able to seamlessly transition to offense and use the team’s overwhelming speed to create off of the rush. With a piecemeal back end, it’s clear that the team’s offensive fortunes were always going to take a step back. That said, I would have assumed a player of Meier’s caliber would be able to play a bit above his situation because of his dynamic ability. After all, looking at Meier’s statistical profile, he’s one of the league’s pre-eminent chance creating power forwards.
While Meier isn’t paid for his defensive ability, when a player has this significant of a one year drop off in the offensive zone, it’s likely adjoined to worse defense. As a whole, the Devils’ defensive woes aren’t a secret, the team’s been without pre-eminent minute eater and elite two way d-man Dougie Hamilton since Thanksgiving weekend and it lost both Damon Severson and Ryan Graves in the offseason.
While Severson and Graves have both struggled in their respective new landing spots (Columbus and Pittsburgh) the replacements (Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes) and the holdovers (John Marino, Jonas Siegenthaler, Brendan Smith) have all struggled to varying degrees. While Nemec and Hughes clearly have upside, they are both raw talents in need of refinement.
It’s pretty much bordering on irresponsible that L. Hughes as a 20-year-old has the most time on ice of any skater on the Devils this season. You’ve gotta remember that as a college hockey player, Hughes played around 40 games plus the conference and NCAA tournaments.. He’s already obliterated that mileage this season with six weeks to go until the postseason as the Devils labor along trying to climb back into the mix.
With less time in the offensive zone, that means Meier subsequently would be in his own end of the ice more. The numbers unequivocally bear out a player struggling in his own end.
The visuals above show where scoring chances against the Devils are coming from when Meier is on the ice, with the areas of red being the more heavily concentrated areas. As you’ll notice, this year, teams are generating an extremely high rate of dangerous chances against New Jersey. Meaning that when Meier is on the ice, the Devils are struggling in their own end so much that it is likely inhibiting his ability to get to offense. While some of that is on the Devils’ defensemen’s collective inability to break out of their own zone, some of this is on Meier who has the ability to get the puck out of danger and serve as an outlet for those trying to exit the zone.
Lastly, just to tie a bow on Meier’s five-on-five play, his defensive impacts also reflect the heat maps above.
The Devils are generating less offense and conceding more defense than last season across the board when Meier is on the ice.
As a whole, It’s pretty unsatisfying to chalk a star player’s underperformance up to team-wide struggles, especially when others like J.Hughes and Jesper Bratt are performing within reason of their normal production. That said, those guys might just so happen to both be more dynamic and capable of rising above the situation than Meier.
Within the context of defense, it’s also a fair assumption that if Meier is dealing with a lingering ailment, he’s going to prioritize offense for the sake of defense. That is a calculated trade-off a physically compromised player has to take and might also be playing into his decreased overall usage.
Final thoughts and diagnosis
A lot of the conjecture around Meier will dissipate if the forward puts together a good stretch run. After all, due to a weak Metropolitan Division, the Devils are only five points behind the third place Philadelphia Flyers. Meier showed signs of life against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night recording two points, just his fifth multipoint game of the season.
In the macro, I think a good chunk of Meier’s struggles can be chalked up to his environment. This might be a case of a big fish from a small pond moving into a bigger body of water. To quote the once venerable and now washed Bill Simmons, “good player, bad team guy.” That’s not to say Meier can’t give the Devils a dimension they didn’t have before his acquisition, but the team was playing so well last season, any deadline addition would’ve had strong underlying numbers in a small sample size.
That said, Meier is under contract for the next seven seasons and are still well within their window of contention. Their key players Hughes (22), Hischier (25), Bratt (25), Meier (27) and Hamilton (30) are within the windows of their respective primes and on long-term contracts. While this specific iteration of the Devils might not bear fruit, that is a strong enough core to maintain an extended window of contention.
As the last 15 plus years of the NHL proves (Unless you’re Los Angeles or Chicago) the key to eventually winning a Stanley Cup is consistently qualifying for the postseason and trying to find the right mix of supplementary talent around your franchise building blocks.
A key undercurrent of recent NHL history is having multiple players that are in that elite tier. In all honesty, the threshold for winning a Stanley Cup is at least two genuine superstars if not 3. A cursory look at the table above shows just how high the bar is for Stanley Cup winners. If nothing else, the persistent presence of teams on this table not only as champions but as teams that qualified for the postseason lays out the plan.
Right now, the Devils are in the infant stages of their window of contention around the Hughes-Hischier-Bratt-Meier-Hamilton core. They’ve qualified for the postseason one time and even won a series their first time around. The one issue in the Devils’ roster assembly is on defense which may or may not just improve with time. While L.Hughes and Nemec are extremely green talents who need to refine their respective games, natural age related progression bodes well for the team’s long-term direction.
To quote the once good at his job and now phoning it in Bill Simmons “he might be a good player, bad team guy.” Meier’s underlying performance in regards to chance creation and zone entries show something that the counting stats don’t. Even on a bad Sharks team, he was making offense for himself in a way that he simply isn’t or can’t right now as a Devil.
This might simply be a case of Murphy’s law for the entire team that’s trickling down and dampening even good players. On the bright side for the Devils, Meier’s 8 points in 12 games since the all star break are more in line with his career production. Unfortunately, the Devils are 6-5-1 since the break with an 898 save percentage during that window.
The team still has one week to decide its course of action for the trade deadline. The team’s biggest needs are on the back end and in net (duh) but there’s already been significant movement across the league. There was reportedly a tentative trade agreement between the Calgary Flames and the Devils for goaltender Jacob Markstrom that got nixed somewhere in the process.
At their current pace, the Devils would finish with 90 points in the standings, 4 behind the Flyers’ season long pace. With 23 games remaining, New Jersey would likely need something between a 65 and 70 percent points percentage the rest of the way to leap frog Philadelphia. That translates to some permutation of about 29 standings points. If the Devils seriously want to qualify for the postseason this year, their goal should be winning 16 of the final 23 games. 16-7 sounds pretty daunting for a team that’s only had four winning streaks of more than two games all season especially considering the last time it happened was back in the second week of December.
Even with everything working against them in the short term, I still believe the Devils are reasonably setup for a multi-year period. The organization has identified its building blocks and has considerable assets to improve the current roster. Ultimately the goal of the Devils as a franchise should be building the perfect supporting cast to bring the best out of its core which includes Meier.
Transition play is the root of all offense, and that starts in the defensive zone. The Devils’ team woes as a defense are having a trickle down effect on the team’s offense, especially on Meier. There is only so much one player within a system can do when he doesn’t have the proper supporting cast. I do think Meier’s woes are a touch exaggerated because of the extension he signed to stay in New Jersey, but he’s got a long track record of success at the NHL level.
As long as the Devils opt for this team plays well in front of the goaltender strategy of roster building, they will be more susceptible to high variance seasons like 2023-2024. The first step in improving the team’s fortunes the rest of the way is stabilizing the defense and getting a better cohesive style of hockey that’s less reliant on star players making plays outside of structure to compensate for poor defense.
I think Meier will more likely than not end up being a good, not great player for the Devils. While he’s underperformed, his lack of counting stat production is not the driving force of the team’s struggles this season. The team’s defensive woes might simply be too much for the existing forwards to overcome as talented as they may be.