When you are a team like the New Jersey Devils, you should be dressing your best possible lineup. Therefore, these three should not be in regularly.
The New Jersey Devils are a bad team. They need to start making the right decisions that will make this team good. They haven’t been that good for a really long time. They made the playoffs in 2018 and it looked like they were on the right track but since then they have been bad. They keep trying to make all of these moves to better themselves but they aren’t working. There are some great young pieces in place that make the future appear bright but they need to start helping themselves.
One way they can help themselves is by putting the best possible lineup out there every single game. They have stars like Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Kyle Palmieri, and Nikita Gusev amongst others that deserve to be in the lineup every night. They also have some depth pieces that do what they need to do to earn their spots in the lineup for now like Jesper Bratt, Pavel Zacha, and Travis Zajac. They could use more from all of those guys but they absolutely deserve to be in the lineup.
The problem is that the Devils haven’t been putting all of their best players in the lineup. They constantly have been putting a few guys in the lineup that don’t really deserve to be there every game. Maybe as the 13th forward or 7th defenseman, these guys would succeed but as of now, they are in the lineup every night. If they are ever going to start winning, they are going to need to start playing their best players every game. These are the three players who shouldn’t be in the lineup regularly anymore: