New Jersey Devils: 5 Players Who Could Fall out of Favor Before Season’s End
For the most part, the New Jersey Devils did what they had to do at the NHL Trade Deadline last Monday. Interim general manager Tom Fitzgerald unloaded three players set to hit unrestricted free agency this summer; goaltender Louis Domingue, defenseman Sami Vatanen, and forward Wayne Simmonds. In addition, he dealt veteran captain Andy Greene along with forward Blake Coleman just over a week ago.
Some other players remaining on the Devils roster after the deadline were kicked around in rumors, but ended up not being dealt. Fitzgerald understandably set a sky-high price on forward Kyle Palmieri and didn’t budge as he was never truly shopping him. Two of the younger players on the team in defenseman Damon Severson and forward Miles Wood were mentioned as potential options to be moved, but nothing came to fruition.
Between injuries and trades, there’s not much left on the Devils roster. As the team looks to hit the reset button over the summer, there will surely be more changes to come once the season is over. Which players that are still present after the deadline could be playing their last few months in a Devils sweater? Here are five players who could fall out of favor before season’s end.
Mirco Mueller was acquired by the Devils via trade in July 2017. Then general manager Ray Shero sent a 2nd- and 4th-round pick in the 2017 NHL Draft to the San Jose Sharks to acquire the young defenseman along with an additional 5th-round pick. At the time, Mueller was an unproven commodity. He was drafted 18th overall in 2013 and had only cracked the Sharks lineup 54 times from 2014 to 2017.
The 24 year old was always expected to be a reclamation project for the rebuilding Devils. Unfortunately, three seasons into his Devils career, it hasn’t worked out. Between injuries and inconsistency, Mueller hasn’t been able to solidify himself in the lineup. His Corsi-For percentage (CF%) has never been over 50 with the Devils. In 2019-20 he has hit a career low so far with 42.6. The Devils defense is absolutely decimated between trades and injuries, so he will most likely play out the rest of the season as a regular in the lineup while he aims to set new career highs in total time-on-ice and games played.
The Swiss-born defenseman will become a restricted free agent at season’s end. Like last summer, Mueller will have arbitration rights in 2020. The Devils avoided salary arbitration last summer by signing him to a one-year deal worth $1.4 million. Due to his status as an RFA, Mueller will be a tough case to assess for the next permanent general manager of the Devils.
This is a difficult time to write negatively about John Hayden. He has bought himself at least a few more days of being in the good graces of fans for his actions in the Devils’ win over Detroit last Tuesday. He made it abundantly clear who will be protecting forward Jack Hughes in light of Simmonds’ departure.
Hayden was acquired by the Devils last summer in a one-for-one swap with the Chicago Blackhawks for forward John Quenneville. The former Yale standout spent a solid amount of time in Hawk’s lineup the past two seasons, tallying 47 games in 2017-2018 and 54 in 2018-2019. The Devils never acquired him to be regular forward in the lineup this season. As he displayed against the Red Wings, he is an honest option to be inserted into the lineup for some physicality and to stand up for his teammates.
Unfortunately for Hayden (and former head coach John Hynes) he wasn’t exactly being deployed that way earlier in the season when the team had good forward depth. On a night we all love to forget against the Winnipeg Jets, Hynes infamously moved Hayden to a line along with Hughes and forward Nikita Gusev mid-game for “stability.” He finished with a -2 while the Jets overcame a four-goal deficit.
With the team’s roster thin on NHL talent, Hayden will most likely be a regular in the lineup for the remainder of the season. He usually slots in alongside forward Kevin Rooney on the fourth line. Like Mueller, Hayden will be a restricted free agent this summer with arbitration rights. As suggested earlier, Hayden is an honest 13th forward, so I wouldn’t mind the team re-signing him to fill that role. However, he just isn’t an effective player on a night-to-night basis, so perhaps the Devils should go in a different direction if they are looking to fill a permanent bottom-six role.
Miles Wood is arguably the most frustrating player in the Devils lineup. He is consistently putting up multiple-game stretches where he looks like the bull-in-a-china-shop player we saw from 2017-2018 and then following it up with a stretch of games where he barely looks like an NHLer.
2018-2019 was a season to forget for most players who suited up in a Devils sweater, especially Wood. Dealing with injuries and inconsistency, Wood tallied 10 goals and 14 assists in 63 games. This came after a training camp in which he held-out for a new multi-year contract. Shero eventually inked him to a four-year extension worth $2.75 million average-annual value (AAV). It was mostly deserved at the time, as Wood put up 19 goals in 2017-18. Since, however, the speedy winger has not lived up to expectations.
Wood has only missed one game this season, racking up some of the most playing time on the team. As a regular in the lineup, he is rocking a career-low CF% of 43.5 this year. During his 19-goal 2017-2018 campaign, he was at 50.77.
The former Boston College Eagle has been mentioned briefly in trade rumors this season. At the deadline, I personally thought he would have been a good alternative to Simmonds for the Vancouver Canucks if they could not absorb at least part of his contract. Wood is a difficult player to move right now, as he is still on the books for $6 million in salary for the next two seasons after 2019-2020. His name will resurface once again in the summer as the Devils look to retool their lineup.
Ray Shero and the Devils understood that they were not acquiring the Norris Trophy-caliber P.K. Subban from his days in Montreal when they acquired him last summer. Shero flipped defensemen Steven Santini and Jeremy Davies along with two second-round picks to the Nashville Predators for Subban’s services. However, the Devils were expecting him to be the anchor that the defense in New Jersey had been needing for years. Unfortunately, Subban has not lived up to even the lowest of expectations this year.
Like Wood, Subban has missed only one game this year. In a little over 1,030 minutes of time-on-ice, he is posting a CF% of 47.70 which would be a career-low by far. Even while dealing with injuries in Nashville last season (albeit on a much better team), he posted a CF% of over 53. There were murmurs all summer that Subban was on a decline and steadily losing his step, but not one that would be responsible for a drop-off as large as this. His offensive game has evaporated as well. Outside of a stretch of 14 games from Dec. 12 to Jan. 14 in which Subaan recorded 6 points, he has been quiet in the opposition’s end of the ice.
Nobody should fault Shero for making this move last summer. When Subban was on the market, the Devils were the only team willing to absorb his entire contract which carries an AAV of $9 million. They gave up pennies-on-the-dollar and had ample cap space to do so. Similar to the financial commitment that comes with Wood, Subban would be nearly impossible to move. He is on the books for $26 million in total salary for the next two seasons after 2019-2020. Even if the Devils ate the maximum of 50 percent of his contract in a trade, his AAV would still be $4.5 million. It will be interesting to see this summer if the organization views Subban as a mentor for the plethora of youth due to come into the Devils lineup the next few years, or if they actively try to unload some of his contract.
Ending up on this list is not how things were supposed to work out for Cory Schneider in 2019-20. At the end of last season, the veteran goaltender finally found his game after going an entire calendar year plus without a victory.
He finished 2018-2019 with a respectable 6-6-2 record in his last 14 appearances to go along with a .923 save percentage. He continued his good play into the spring at the IIHF World Championship, posting a .920 save percentage for the United States in six games. Finally, he capped it all off with a dominant 2019 preseason in which he appeared in 4 games and posted a 1.80 goals against average (GAA).
After all this, Schneider started the season in New Jersey with an 0-4-1 record in six appearances. This earned him a demotion to Binghamton on Nov. 19. The former Canuck improved his game in the AHL while he appeared in 14 games and posted a 2.71 GAA to go along with a .903 save percentage. He finally won his first NHL game this season on Tuesday night in Detroit after going 0-7-2 in his previous 11 appearances. With Domingue being dealt at the deadline, Schneider will have the opportunity to reassert his game at the NHL level for the remainder of the season. I would anticipate fellow goaltender MacKenzie Blackwood to get a majority of the starts the rest of the way, but Schneider will surely see some playing time in favorable matchups.
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The Devils will have a few different options with Schneider come the summertime. The one that seems most popular throughout the fanbase is a buyout. The Devils goaltender is owed $12 million over the final two years of his deal after this season concludes and he carries a cap-hit of $6 million AAV. According to the buyout tool on CapFriendly, the Devils would be on the books for an annual $2 million cap-penalty through 2023-2024 if they chose to execute a buyout this summer. On the flip side, Schneider could get his game together and be a mentor to Blackwood for the remainder of his contract in New Jersey. It will be interesting to see if ownership is willing to bite the bullet on a buyout or if the organization wants to give the veteran goaltender yet another chance going into 2020-2021.