McLeod and Bastian have a pretty unique role.

Of all the strikers on the team last season, Michael McLeod and Nathan Bastian have carved out a unique role for themselves in the New Jersey Devils. On the surface, it makes a bit of sense. McLeod started and played all year as a fourth-row center, and being on a lane of control means he has different responsibilities than a top-6 center. Certainly he was put on the ice in different situations and at different times than Nico’s line or Jack’s line. And Bastian, once he was reacquired by the team, also fit into that vein and complemented the role that McLeod created.

Now, how exactly is this quantified and displayed in the data? When scrolling through Natural Stats Trick to find data points, a couple really jumped. First, check out the list of strikers who played at least 500 minutes this year at the link above. 625 forwards qualify. Among them, here is the ranking of the top 5 NJ skaters in terms of hits:

As you can see, Bastian and McLeod had significantly more hits than anyone else on the team. And they also had more overall than most skaters this season. Remember, those ranks are 625 skaters. Bastian was ranked 25th and McLeod tied for 85th. No one else was even close and, in fact, no one else on the Devils had more than 100 hits. Also, you can see that the other 3 on this list are all defenders. The next best forward in terms of hits for NJ was Jimmy Vesey, who ranked t-259 with 85 hits. The real meaning of that comes with the time on ice stat. All defenders were on the ice significantly more than the two forwards, but they outhit everyone by a very wide margin. That says something about the role they have cast.

The other really interesting stat is the OZFO%. This time, let’s narrow down the list to just 5v5, as well as just forwards, since it doesn’t make much sense to include defenders in the OZFO%, their rotations are different. When you put these stipulations in Natural Stats Trick, we have 387 forwards who qualified last season. Take a look at the last 5 Devils forwards in terms of OZFO%:

What you see there is almost every forward in NJ played at least 500 5v5 minutes that had an offensive end matchup percentage below 50%. The only other was Jesper Boqvist, who came in at 49.08%. And obviously, among these skaters, it’s not close. McLeod and Bastian are in a category of their own. You might want to include Vesey with them, but he really is his own level in the middle between those two and everyone else. The crazy part is, again, those ratings are 387 forwards. So only 5 skaters had a lower OZFO% than McLeod, and only 8 had a lower OZFO% than Bastian. Those two were rarely sent off for offensive zone draws. It just didn’t happen too often, basically only one in four faceoff attempts in the offensive zone. That’s very, very skewed toward the defensive side of things. Very few forwards are given those kinds of openings, but with the Devils, they’re both a perfect fit. It really is quite a unique situation.

And looking ahead, both remain under contract for another year at very reasonable prices. McLeod is signed for $975k this year and Bastian $825k. The Devils are getting two very defensive fourth-row forwards who excel at the physical and defensive game, all for less than $1.8 million. It may not be a high-paying job, but it’s an important niche to have on a team. Regardless of how you feel about the physicality of the game of hockey, and how much weight should be put on things like hits, however, teams still feel the need to have players around who can do it and do it well, and these two guys they meet that requirement. Also, McLeod is becoming a very strong face-to-face man, another guy the team can use. It also helps that the two have played together for a long time, knowing each other inside and out on the ice. Both were drafted together, Round 1 and 2 back-to-back picks from the Devils, and played together in Mississauga before that. They make a great match for what they do, providing the Devils with quality pieces in a lane of control that helps tip the ice in NJ’s favor when needed. So I think $1.8 million is a lot.