Sergey Kalinin Waived By New Jersey Devils

The New Jersey Devils made a move on Friday morning to waive their fourth line center Sergey Kalinin.

The move seems confusing, as he’s been good as a grinder throughout the season. As far as fourth line players go, he was rarely out of the lineup appearing in 43 out of 57 games this season. He also appeared in all but four games last year.

He is also a staple on the Devils penalty kill. After the Ottawa Senators looked like they were a machine with the extra man Thursday, eventually scoring the game-winning goal in the second period, the team might feel they could just plug someone in there.

The major motivating factor for the move is probably his serious lack of offense.

The Devils were shutout again on Thursday against the Ottawa Senators. Kalinin has four points all season. The team could be looking to bring up Blake Coleman.

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Coleman has 32 points in 44 games centering the second line on the Albany Devils. He has a very small sample size with the Devils, playing in five games and getting one assist.

Another option is to just slide Joseph Blandisi into the lineup. He was a healthy scratch against the Ottawa Senators. He’s also played five games this season, but last season he had 17 points in 41 games.

A long shot would be to call up John Quenneville. He’s been good with the Albany Devils offensively, but needs some work on other aspects of his game. He has 35 points on the season, his first out of juniors.

If offense is what the team wants, they could look to move things around and bring Devante Smith-Pelley back into the lineup. In his 18 games with the Devils last year, he scored eight goals with five assists. This season he has two goals in 41 games. There has to be something wrong with the 24 year old that the team hopes a few healthy scratches could fix. His shot percentage on the Devils last year was 23.5%. This year it’s 3.2%. There is clearly a confidence issue with Smith-Pelley and that can be fixed.

The last option would be for the Devils to open up a spot for Kyle Quincey who is on injured reserve. This doesn’t seem likely since that would give them eight active defenseman, but it is possible since they probably want to showcase him for the trade deadline.