Devils Adjust Defense | BLOG

The Devils used the following defensive flow at Sunday's practice in Newark.
Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Graves - Severson
White - Subban
Smith - Jaros
If those pairings hold up for Monday night when the Devils host the Vancouver Canucks, Smith would be a healthy scratch for the first time in his neophyte career.
"When you look at some of his puck play, he's been victimized on some of the errant plays that he's made with the puck," head coach Lindy Ruff said. "I feel defensively sometimes his game has been loose. We all know that to be a young defenseman to play in this league, and he's still a young defenseman, you have to play sound defensively."

Young is the key. Smith is only 21 years old, and perhaps may be the victim of his own outrageous success during his rookie campaign in 2020-21 - which saw him establish himself as arguably the team's best defenseman.
But the road to the NHL isn't in a straight path.
"There's no clear line to a steady position in the NHL. There are bumps along the road, dips in your play," Ruff said. "He's had lots of opportunity to earn the right to be in night after night. For a young player like Ty, he has to keep working hard. He has to know what his game is.
"He's had an opportunity all year to find his game. I'm going to emphasize that it's defensively and puck play that has been victimized."