Devils' Siegenthaler Struggling, But Luck Not on His Side

Jonas Siegenthaler's had a rough start to the 2025-26 season, but he's also been the victim of some bad luck.

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Even though they got a bit worse as the season progressed, the New Jersey Devils still had one of the best defensive units in the NHL during the 2024-25 campaign. But at least to start this season, that hasn’t been the case.

Injuries are a factor. We likely won’t see Johnathan Kovacevic until the calendar flips to 2026, and Brett Pesce is likely out another couple of weeks at a minimum. But it’s not just injuries that have been a factor. It’s regression, too.

Jonas Siegenthaler was arguably the best defensive defenseman in the NHL a season ago, but he’s struggling through the first 13 games of the 2025-26 campaign. What’s gone wrong, and is he due to turn it around soon?

Siegenthaler Struggling Out of the Gate

If there were an award for defensive defenseman of the year, Siegenthaler would have been up for it last season. Depending on what metrics you used, he was in the top five defensively and, in some cases, No. 1.

Siegenthaler finished last season with a defensive net rating of 10.2, and that was with him missing the final two months of the regular season. His even-strength defense was also worth a goals above replacement (GAR) of 11, first among all NHL defensemen.

Even when you look at Siegenthaler’s expected numbers, they show his season wasn’t a fluke. His even-strength defense was worth an xGAR of 6.6, ranked in the top 15 among all NHL defensemen.

It’s still early in the 2025-26 season, so small sample sizes will create some wonky numbers, but Siegenthaler’s have not been good.

His even-strength defense has been worth an xGAR of -0.8, ranking him in the bottom 50 among all defensemen. It doesn’t get much better when looking at expected goals, either.

Siegenthaler has an expected goals share (xG%) of 40.23 percent, ranked in the bottom 10 among Devils skaters. One reason for that change is he’s not suppressing shots at the level he did a season ago.

The only Devils skaters to allow more expected goals per 60 minutes than Siegenthaler are Paul Cotter and Dennis Cholowski, the latter of whom has only played two games this season. In case you’re wondering what that number is for Siegenthaler, it’s 3.31 expected goals against per 60.

Do I think Siegenthaler will continue to allow 3.31 expected goals per 60? I doubt it because that seems like an unsustainably high number, and even during his down seasons, he’s given up much less.