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New Jersey Devils: Yegor Yakovlev Should Stay With Team All Season

By Nick Villano

LAVAL, QC - OCTOBER 12: Look on Binghamton Devils defenceman Yegor Yakovlev (44) at warm-up before the Binghamton Devils versus the Laval Rocket game on October 12, 2018, at Bell Place in Laval, QC (Photo by David Kirouac/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
LAVAL, QC - OCTOBER 12: Look on Binghamton Devils defenceman Yegor Yakovlev (44) at warm-up before the Binghamton Devils versus the Laval Rocket game on October 12, 2018, at Bell Place in Laval, QC (Photo by David Kirouac/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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The New Jersey Devils called up Russian defenseman Yegor Yakovlev after Steve Santini went on injured reserve. He’s played well enough to stick with the team all season.

The New Jersey Devils made two, let’s call them interesting moves on Monday morning to fill out their roster. Unfortunately, one of those moves was to bring back Kevin Rooney despite his performance on Saturday. That move seems like it’s very short term until Jesper Bratt comes back, so we will ignore that for now. The move we should care about is Egor (or Yegor, depending on who you ask) Yakovlev getting the call up after Steve Santini broke his jaw.

Yakovlev was a player I loved coming into camp. I personally thought he could have stolen the spot taken up by Mirco Mueller, but Mueller has actually been pretty good in that spot. He took a little longer than expected to get acclimated to the North American game, and started the year in Binghamton. While there, he was an assists machine.

He has seven assists in seven games for Binghamton. It’s very rare for a defenseman to score a point per game, especially when the team was shut out for two straight games. He’s another player that can drive offense, which is the route the Devils want to go in for their future.

Last week, the Devils looked like they were losing Will Butcher when he left Tuesday’s game with a shoulder injury. Things looked bleak when it looked like he couldn’t pick up his left arm. Fans were thinking he either separated his shoulder or broke his collarbone. It was such a worry because the Devils had nobody to even remotely replace him. They had Eric Gryba and Steve Santini at the time. However, with Yakovlev on the big league club, the Devils have a player that can slot into the first-team power play and add his offensive upside to the team.

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Yakovlev being on the team in not like any other prospect. He is currently waiver exempt. The Devils can put him up and down from Binghamton to New Jersey as much as they want. That is, until he plays one NHL game.

Once Yakovlev plays a game on the NHL level, he is now waiver eligible. That means if the Devils play Yakovlev on Thursday, then decide he’s better on Binghamton, every team in the NHL would have a chance to claim him before he can go back to the AHL.

Yakovlev has some work to do on the defensive side, but Hynes showed with how he used Butcher last year that he can work with that. He started Butcher in the offensive zone a majority of the time. He has players that can make up for those mistakes to make sure they don’t end up in goals. Either way, the Devils shouldn’t risk losing Yakovlev for good. He’s currently hitting his prime, and once he gets used to the North American game, he could be really good. It will just take some time.

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