Jonas Siegenthaler

Grade: C-

2025-26 Review

For the first time in his eight season career, Jonas Siegenthaler was able to play in all 82 regular season games. On the flip side of that, Siegenthaler continued an interesting theme of alternating between really strong seasons and troublesome ones. In 2025-26, Siegenthaler fell well short of his terrific 2022-23 and 2024-25 seasons. However, he did fair better than his woeful 2023-24 season.

Siegenthaler had a relatively strong season defensively. His on-ice defensive impacts, according to Evolving Hockey’s goals above replacement (GAR) metrics, put his defensive play in the 60th percentile. He was above replacement level at even strength defensively, on the penalty kill, and in terms of taking penalties. All vital parts of any player’s defensive game.

Siegenthaler also led the team in blocked shots at 135; a mark which ranked 34th in the entire league. He also ranked fourth on the team in hits. Lastly, he was second on the team in penalty kill time played per game, and, along with Dougie Hamilton and Johnathan Kovacevic, played decently well in doing so. He ranked third on the team in expected goals against per 60 minutes (xGA/60) among defensemen while on the kill.

The issues with Siegenthaler came offensively. A defensive defenseman, as Siegenthatler is, should not be graded on their ability to generate tangible offense (points). However, there is a breaking point if your offensive impacts are so poor, no matter how you play defensively, where your overall value takes a huge hit. The Swiss defenseman found that breaking point and surpassed it, and not in a good way.

His overall on-ice offensive metrics ranked miserably, specifically, in the league’s second percentile. Factoring that in, and despite ranking in the 60th percentile defensively, his overall metrics ranked in the league’s eighth percentile. For further context, Siegentahler’s offensive GAR rating ranked 331 of 353 defensemen to play a game this season. Meanwhile, his expected GAR (xGAR) offensive rating ranked 349th. He was one of the worst defenseman, from an offensive standpoint, in the league this season. As a result his overall value took a large hit culminating in the bellow average “C-minus” grade.

2026-27 Outlook

What type of Siegenthaler will the Devils get in 2026-27 if he returns? Will they get one of the top defensive defenseman in the game? Like they did in 2021-22 (99th percentile defensively), 2022-23 (71st percentile defensively), and 2024-25 (99th percentile defensively). Or, will they get the Siegenthaler that struggled in the 2023-24 and 2025-26 seasons?

Being a left-handed defenseman, Siegentahler is on the side of the Devils’ defensive core that does not quite have a logjam. He joins Luke Hughes and Brenden Dillon on the left side as the only three established NHL defenseman in the organization. Siegenthaler also carries a modest $3.4 million cap hit. When the 29-year-old is at his best, which he has been more than not throughout his six year Devils career, that contract becomes one of the more valuable in the league.

On the other end of that, if new general manger Sunny Mehta thinks Siegenthaler may be more so the defenseman he was this past season and in his very poor 2023-24 year, he may want to move on from Siegenthaler. This would be possible as he would just need to navigate his 10-team no-trade list. Given the lower price tag on the deal, that would be very doable.

Note, all statistics are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey.