Nico Hischier is a busy man. He entered the league with a scouting report that told us he should develop into an all-situations star, and boy has he ever. In his four full seasons since taking over the captaincy, Hischier has been at or near the top of the average time on ice rankings among Devils forwards in every facet of the game:

2024-25:

Power Play TOI: 2:52 (2nd to Jack Hughes)

Shorthanded TOI: 2:03 (1st)

Total TOI: 20:23 (2nd to Hughes)

2023-24:

PP TOI: 3:25 (2nd to Hughes)

SH TOI: 1:22 (4th, a mere one second behind Tomas Nosek)

Total TOI: 19:29 (2nd to Hughes)

2022-23:

PP TOI: 2:58 (2nd to Hughes)

SH TOI: 2:05 (1st)

Total TOI: 19:17 (2nd to Hughes)

2021-22:

PP TOI: 2:49 (2nd to Hughes)

SH TOI: 1:42 (3rd if you take away Frederik Gauthier and his eight games played)

Total TOI: 19:21 (2nd to Hughes)

Hischier has always gotten plenty of ice time, but this past season was a significant jump even for him. We’ve talked a lot about some of the big changes that Sheldon Keefe made to this team in his first year running the show, mostly the system changes he implemented. But one significant tweak that flew under the radar a little bit was the boost in Hischier’s minutes. 2024-25 was the first season that Hischier averaged more than 20 minutes per game, clocking in at basically one full minute more per game than the past three seasons when Hischier averaged around 19 1⁄2 minutes. It might not seem like a big difference, but one additional minute of ice time can mean a lot. Personally, I’m all for Keefe giving Hischier more playing time. It’s usually a winning strategy to make sure your best players get the most ice time after all.

Not only was Hischier’s 20:23 TOI per game a big number on the Devils, it was a big number even compared to the rest of the league as well. According to Natural Stat Trick, last season Hischier was tied for 16th in average TOI among forwards. Compare that to 2023-24 when Hischier’s 19:29 per game was tied for 47th among forwards (note: For some reason Natural Stat Trick has Hischier at 19:28, but Hockey Reference and the NHL website both have him at 19:29, so I’m going with that). Jumping from 47th to 16th is a big deal, and it’s well-deserved for an elite, all-situations dynamo like Hischier.

And it’s that “all-situations” part that’s important here. There weren’t many forwards ahead of Hischier in average TOI, but the vast majority of the ones that were ahead of him did not have the defensive responsibilities that Hischier had. As we can see from the numbers above, he’s one of the most relied upon Devils in shorthanded situations. That would be enough, but it’s his even strength usage that really puts him over the top. Tune into any given Devils game and you’re sure to see Hischier matching up against the best players in the world.

Take this past season’s 5-on-5 numbers for example. The home opener against the Maple Leafs? The two players he saw the most time against were Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Against the Lightning on October 22nd? Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point, and Victor Hedman were his most common opponents. December 8th against the Avalanche? Hard-matched against Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Cale Makar, and Devon Toews. January 14th against the Panthers? How does an assignment of Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Matt Tkachuk, and Gustav Forsling sound to you? Believe me I could go on, but I think you get the point. Hischier is asked to shut down the other team’s best night in and night out.

So with this being the case, a question could be asked: How much is all this defensive responsibility weighing down Hischier’s offense? On the surface, the answer would appear to be “not much”. Over the last four seasons, Hischier has scored 276 points in 297 games. That’s an average of exactly 69 points per season, and a per-game rate of 0.93 (an 82-game rate of 76.2 points). Those aren’t top-of-the-league numbers, but that’s still elite production. In fact, Hischier just set a new career-high in goals in a single season with 35, so if anything his production has never been better.

Still, I can’t help but feel that if Hischier’s defensive burden was eased just a little bit, his offense could truly explode. If these are the numbers he’s posting while going up against elite competition on a nightly basis, imagine what he could do with a few extra shifts against depth players. Could he reach 90, or dare I say 100 points? For a player as talented as Hischier, it’s possible. But how can the Devils actually do that? What is the path to giving Hischier more opportunities to shine offensively?

That’s where Cody Glass comes in.

A Shutdown Center In The Making?

Like Hischier, Cody Glass was also a top-10 pick in the 2017 draft, going 6th overall to the Vegas Golden Knights. He put up some huge seasons with the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks, but he’s never been able to carry that offense into the pros. After a couple disappointing seasons with the Golden Knights, Vegas shipped him to Nashville. Glass did put up a decent 35 points in 72 games in 2022-23 with the Predators, but that modest point total represents his career-high. Soon after that, he was moved to Pittsburgh, and then to New Jersey. And nowhere along the line has he registered big time offensive numbers.

However, despite Glass’ offense not translating to the NHL, he has developed into one of the game’s best defensive forwards. According to Natural Stat Trick, among forwards who played at least 500 minutes last season, Glass posted elite defensive numbers:

Corsi Against per 60: 51.05 (27th-best rate in the league)

Scoring Chances Against per 60: 20.99 (12th-best)

High Danger Corsi Against per 60: 8.18 (10th-best)

Expected Goals Against per 60: 2.05 (21st-best)

There were 378 forwards who played at least 500 minutes last season, so for Glass to rank from 10th-27th in each of these categories is deeply impressive.

If Natural Stat Trick isn’t enough for you, there are many other analytics models that rate Glass as one of the best defensive forwards in the game. JFresh’s microstats model has him in the 90th percentile for his defense:

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn has him just a shade below that in the 86th percentile:

Quality work by the Devils to keep Cody Glass at $2.5M. Came into his own last year as a defensively capable top nine option. Will be interesting to see whether he can build on that. pic.twitter.com/XFIg9aci8o

— dom (@domluszczyszyn) July 2, 2025

And Evolving Hockey is the highest on Glass’ defensive game, ranking him way up in the 96th percentile:

The numbers are pretty unanimous in their conclusion: Glass is an excellent defensive player. So with this being the case, Glass can be the matchup center that Sheldon Keefe deploys against other teams’ top players, freeing Hischier up to play against more third and fourth liners, right?

Well…

Quality Of Competition

While it’s true that Glass has posted elite defensive numbers over his career, a lot of that has come against non-elite competition. In JFresh’s tweet above, you might notice he actually has a specific category for Competition. Same with Luszczyszyn, though he labels it as “Difficulty”. These are basically measures of how tough a player’s quality of competition is. It makes sense that this would be important enough to track. After all, there is a HUGE difference between shutting down Connor McDavid and shutting down, say, any given Chicago Blackhawks fourth liner. And according to JFresh and Luszczyszyn, Glass’ quality of competition is only slightly above average, meaning he’s usually matching up against decent but not elite players.

Was this also the case in New Jersey? Or did Keefe actually give him a bump up in competition once he came over at the trade deadline? Let’s take a look at Glass’ game logs for all the home games (since teams have way more power to control matchups at home) that he played for the Devils to find out. I’m going to exclude the season finale against Detroit though, since the Devils treated that as a glorified preseason game (all numbers 5-on-5):

Most common forward opponents: Mathieu Olivier (2nd line), Zach Aston-Reese (4th line), Boone Jenner (2nd line)

Most common forward opponents: Connor Brown (2nd line), Vasily Podkolzin (3rd line), Adam Henrique (3rd line)

Most common forward opponents: Blake Coleman (3rd line) Yegor Sharangovich (3rd line), Joel Farabee (3rd line)

Most common forward opponents: David Perron (3rd line), Shane Pinto (2nd line), Ridly Greig (2nd line)

Most common forward opponents: Drew O’Connor (2nd line), Teddy Blueger (4th line), Kiefer Sherwood (2nd line)

Most common forward opponents: Sam Carrick (4th line), J.T. Miller (2nd line), Alexis Lafrenière (2nd line)

Most common forward opponents: Cole Koepke (4th line), Jakub Lauko (4th line), John Beecher (4th line)

Most common forward opponents: Sidney Crosby (1st line), Ville Koivunen (1st line), Bryan Rust (1st line)

Most common forward opponents: Maxim Tsyplakov (3rd line), Jean-Gabriel Pageau (3rd line), Simon Holmstrom (3rd line)

Aside from the April 11 game against Pittsburgh, Glass saw a steady dose of depth competition. Even when Keefe had Glass at his disposal, he stuck with Hischier as the go-to guy to shut down the other team’s elite players. So to answer the question of whether Glass’ deployment changed with the Devils, no it did not.

For what it’s worth, Glass did extremely well against Crosby and pals on April 11, logging a 5-on-5 xGF% of 93.67% against the Penguins’ entire top line. It’s a microscopic sample size of one game obviously, but at least for that one game, Glass proved he could swim with the big fish.

Does this mean Keefe is guaranteed to not use Glass as the matchup center this upcoming season? I don’t believe so. It’s quite possible he just didn’t know Glass’ abilities enough to trust him with the toughest assignments right off the bat, but a full training camp with him will give him that confidence. At the same time, we have to admit there’s little to no evidence that Keefe has plans to use Glass against top competition this upcoming season either, based on past usage anyway. At this point, it’s only a theoretical premise.

A Calculated Risk

So if I’m Sheldon Keefe, what would I do with Glass? Personally, I would give him a shot against elite competition to begin the season. I don’t think I would put ALL of the burden on Glass right away though, I would still want Hischier taking on the toughest matchups at least some of the time. But you could go with some sort of split between Glass and Hischier to begin the campaign, and if it goes well, you can start giving Glass more and more of the tough assignments while letting Hischier blowtorch lesser competition.

Glass has a proven track record of outstanding defensive play, even if it’s almost never against the league’s best players. That being said, it’s not like he’s only been deployed against fourth liners either. Glass is a known commodity against second and third line competition, as the numbers from JFresh and Luszczyszyn above (as well as his Devils game logs) show. As he enters the prime of his career, I would give him a chance to prove he can take the next step and become a top level shutdown guy.

The other reason I take this chance is because I trust Keefe’s system to help Glass adjust to his new role. We all had our issues with the offense last season, even before Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton got hurt. But we all had very few complaints about the defense. New Jersey improved dramatically in this regard between 2023-24 and 2024-25, which is a credit to Keefe and his coaching. This turnaround isn’t solely because of the defensemen either, as almost every forward on the team saw big improvements in their defensive games. As one example, Jack Hughes, who was never a penalty kill option prior to last year, was deployed on the kill a lot under Keefe. And not only did he not drown in his new role, he was one of New Jersey’s most effective killers. Keefe has shown from his time in Toronto and New Jersey that he can get the best out of his players as far as the defensive side of the game goes. So I have to imagine that if anyone can turn Glass into the modern day John Madden, it’s Keefe.

I mentioned the complaints about the offense. The issues were real, and there are still questions about whether this team will score enough goals to compete for a title. Much of the focus has been on finding more depth scoring, which is no doubt important. But perhaps another route to scoring more goals is freeing up Hischier from heavy defensive responsibilities. And keep in mind, this doesn’t just affect Hischier, it is something his entire line has to deal with as well. If we take a look at who Hischier mostly lined up with last season, we see that he spent a whopping 738 minutes with Timo Meier. The next two most common linemates for Hischier were Stefan Noesen (466 minutes) and Dawson Mercer (360 minutes). It’s hard to ask for more production out of Noesen, but Meier and Mercer are two players that a lot of Devils fans want more points from. If Glass is able to shoulder more of the load as far as shutting down elite competition, and Hischier is going to be spending most of his time playing with Meier and Mercer again, maybe instead of relying on improved depth to get the offense back on track, the Devils can get more production out of Hischier and his line.

And of course, if the “Glass as matchup center” experiment isn’t going well over the first month or two of the season, the Devils always have the option to go back to relying on Hischier. But I for one would love to see Glass take the opportunity and run with it. If the team really isn’t going to add a third line center with more offensive upside or a top six winger to add more scoring punch, then perhaps the strategy is to pivot to Glass absorbing the tough assignments and letting Hischier run roughshod over the depth. I have my doubts that Keefe will actually do this, but it’s something I want him to at least try.

Your Take

What do you make of all this? Do you think Glass is ready for a shot at top competition? Or would you continue to play Hischier against the big guns? If Glass does free Hischier up defensively, how much more production do you think we can expect out of Hischier? As always, thanks for reading!