New Jersey Devils: Michael McLeod Needs To Be Much Better

The New Jersey Devils lost their first preseason game with their A team taking on the New York Rangers. One player who did not stand out like he should have was Michael McLeod.

It was a disappointing return for the New Jersey Devils as they lost to the New York Rangers in overtime. Cam Johnson and Keith Kinkaid did their best to keep the team in it, but at the end of the day the Devils came out with a loss. There were some positives in the loss, but more negatives. One of those negatives was the play of Michael McLeod.

McLeod was not very good. Listen, he had flashes in the third period. However, he was really bad in the first two. It was actually concerning how rough his play was.

It looked like McLeod had lost a step for much of the game. He found himself out of position on multiple occasions. There were times where he over skated the puck, and put himself out of position. Beyond that, his passes weren’t hitting their mark.

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In fact, a major blunder by McLeod caused the Devils to lose the game. He sent a pass to Jesper Bratt and immediately ran up the ice. Bratt couldn’t handle the pass and the Rangers stole it. A pass to a wide open Neal Pionk, who put it past Johnson. Pionk was in the exact same position that McLeod was in when he made the pass. It obviously wasn’t all on him, but McLeod started the play that ended the game.

It wasn’t all bad. He had a really nice pass to Nick Lappin, who had an awesome game by the way, that helped put the Devils up 3-2. We expected more of this from the 2016 first-round pick.

This isn’t a piece to give up on McLeod. He’s just 20 years old, and has time to go yet. It just looks like he needs a year in the minors before he’s ready to make it on a John Hynes’ coached team. Hopefully, he watches the tape from this matchup and works on his mistakes.