New Jersey Devils: Top 5 Prospects On Roster Bubble This Offseason

New Jersey Devils - Reilly Walsh (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
New Jersey Devils - Reilly Walsh (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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New Jersey Devils – Reilly Walsh (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
New Jersey Devils – Reilly Walsh (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

The New Jersey Devils season may or may not be over, but one thing that’s for sure is the team’s prospects are in offseason mode. These five players may or may not be Devils past this summer.

This offseason is obviously an important one for the New Jersey Devils. We still have no idea when that offseason is going to begin, because technically the team still has 13 games to play. The season has been put on “pause”, and there are serious considerations to find a way to play all the missing games. It’s great news for those who just want to watch hockey, however a decision on that is still a few months away.

Also a few months away is the Devils decision on multiple prospects. There are a couple prospects who’s rights expire in one way or another this “offseason”. Just about every prospect league in the world has officially canceled their season. The lone exception is the AHL, but that decision could come sooner rather than later.

The Devils have done a masterful job really transforming their prospect pool from one of the worst in the National Hockey League, to one that’s at least arguably in the top ten. It helped adding prospects and picks from six different trades to bring in new picks and prospects into the fold.

The big wild card in all this is the guy who made all the decisions to bring these prospects in isn’t here anymore. The Devils fired general manager Ray Shero in the middle of the season, and that puts a lot of the future of these prospects in flux. A few of the prospects have major decisions to make, as the Devils have to make with them. If they aren’t signed, they could be forced to change their trajectory, or they could become free agents sooner. Let’s start with the most obvious decision the Devils have to make.

Reilly Walsh (Photo by Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images)
Reilly Walsh (Photo by Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images) /

Reilly Walsh

In our midseason prospect rankings, Harvard defenseman Reilly Walsh was named the second-best prospect in all of the New Jersey Devils system. That was partially because of the graduation of Jack Hughes and Jesper Boqvist, but it’s also because he’s a very talented defenseman that could jump in to the Devils blue line as it’s currently constructed.

Walsh is in his Junior year at Harvard, and as Ray Shero famously told him, playing for the Crimson would be the best “three years of his life”. He was referring to the fact that the Devils had to sign him after those three years in order to avoid him becoming a college free agent next season. So, if the Devils don’t sign Walsh this offseason, luring him away from college, then he’s likely going to sign elsewhere, similar to what Will Butcher did to the Colorado Avalanche to sign here.

Walsh watched as his former teammate Adam Fox left the nest and forced a trade to play with the New York Rangers. That’s worked out about as well as it possibly could have. That’s another reason the Devils have to sign Walsh. If he leaves next year, there’s more than a good chance he could choose to sign with their most-hated rival since one of Walsh’s teammates plays there.

Walsh could make the jump to the NHL next season, or he could play some time in the AHL to hone his craft. He’s not ready to carry the load, but if the Devils want to throw him in the Connor Carrick role as a seventh defenseman, we think he’d do really well in that role at first. Either way, signing him might be the Devils biggest priority this offseason.

Xavier Bernard (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Xavier Bernard (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /

Xavier Bernard

When it comes to Xavier Bernard, the decision is likely all up to the New Jersey Devils. He’s had a really good season playing with the Sherbrooke Phoenix of the QMJHL. Just a few weeks ago, he had a five point game. He’s played 62 games this season and has 29 points. He’s almost getting a half point per game from the blue line.

He’s now on his third team in the QMJHL, and he’s playing his best hockey with Sherbrooke. We always say that +/- is a bad stat unless it’s an absolute outlier, and his +35 in 29 games in exactly that. Bernard’s team was very good before the season ended, as they clinched the regular season championship. It’s pretty upsetting the season ended, because Bernard could have been on his way to playing for a championship if things went the way they were projected.

Bernard’s rights with the Devils expire on June 1st, which only gives the Devils two months to decide on Bernard’s future. We expect them to sign him once things calm down, and then bring him in to the AHL. There’s definitely room for him there, and he’s proven himself to be good enough to turn pro. He will have some issues at first, as most players do when jumping from juniors to the AHL, but he has the ability and the upside to make the NHL one day. At this point, the Devils cannot afford to just lose defensive pieces that have any chance to make the NHL, let alone one that is 20 years old.

Mitchell Hoelscher (Photo by Chris Tanouye/Getty Images)
Mitchell Hoelscher (Photo by Chris Tanouye/Getty Images) /

Mitchell Hoelscher

Mitchell Hoelscher is another prospect that the Devils lose his rights on June 1st, but his situation is a lot more up in the air. He’s a center that took another major step in his development with an Ottawa 67’s team that went off the charts in terms of production. The 20 year old was a 6th-round pick when the Devils took him in 2018, and if he decided to re-enter the NHL Draft, it’s almost certain someone would take him.

So, the Devils have to decide whether they want to find a spot for him in the AHL, or lose him for nothing. This, after he just saw his points jump from 40 to 76 despite playing less games. This is the type of jump you want from a player you take a chance on with the 172nd pick.

Hoelscher should be signed based on his talent and the fact that the Devils, again, can’t afford to lose any prospects with upside, but where can you put him? A player like that deserves a place up the middle, but the Devils might already have Michael McLeod, Mikhail Maltsev, Yegor Sharangovich and Ryan Schmelzer playing center in Binghamton. Even if McLeod makes the Devils next season, they have Marian Studenic waiting in the wings.

Hoelscher is someone we see the Devils signing, then figuring out later. They may pushing someone like Schmelzer, who has shorter upside than Hoelscher, down to the ECHL. Either way, there are a lot of reasons to push this player into the pros.

Akira Schmid (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)
Akira Schmid (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images) /

Akira Schmid

This season has gone literally as off the rails as possible for Akira Schmid. Sounds a lot like what the Devils themselves have gone through. Schmid was traded from the Omaha Lancers of the USHL to the Sioux City Musketeers of the same league. His stats got worse, and he hasn’t played a game since the middle of February.

This, after Schmid was one of the best goalies in that league just last year. His numbers dropped from a .926 save percentage last year to a .890 save percentage this season. That’s an unprecedented drop. The real scary thing about Schmid is there’s talk of a possible hip injury. We can’t confirm that for sure, but if that’s true, that could cut down his career in an instant.

Schmid was quickly looking like the goalie of the future, but now his entire career is uncertain. What does he do next? He has a lot of options if he’s still the goalie he was in 2018-19, but those options dwindle if he’s got a major hip injury. He lost NCAA eligibility when he played that one disastrous game for the Lethbridge Hurricanes. So, he can either sign with the Devils to play in the AHL/ECHL or he could go back home to Switzerland and continue his career there.

The Devils have Evan Cormier and Gilles Senn in the AHL right now, along with newly acquired Zane McIntyre. It looks like Schmid would have to play in the ECHL, at least to start. That hip injury is scary, and the Devils might say “no thanks” after everything hips put them through with Cory Schneider.

New Jersey Devils – Josh Jacobs (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
New Jersey Devils – Josh Jacobs (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

Josh Jacobs

This is the only one the Devils have pure control over. Josh Jacobs is a former 2nd-round pick. However, that was so long ago that Jacobs was drafted by Lou Lamoriello. Next season will be the sixth since Jacobs joined the Devils franchise.

Jacobs is 24 years old, so calling him a prospect is starting to become a stretch. There’s also the major problem that we haven’t seem much from him in the AHL. He was given a couple games in the NHL this season, and he was fine. However, it’s not like he showed up he was NHL ready.

Jacobs contract is up, and now the Devils have to decide whether they want to continue their journey with Jacobs. He was a former 2nd-round pick, so somebody thought highly of him. There has to be talent there, but nobody on the Devils has been able to unlock it.

So, should the Devils just count their losses and let him sign somewhere else? Last year, they put Steve Santini in the P.K. Subban trade, another failed Lou Lamoriello defenseman. Losing Jacobs wouldn’t hurt the Devils, even if Tom Fitzgerald gets the GM job. There were times this season where Jacobs was put on the Binghamton Devils third line.

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However, playing him in the NHL at all shows they at least want to see what he can do before he becomes a restricted free agent. If he couldn’t prove to be anything, then they could move on without conviction. Instead, the season went on pause, and now they have nothing to go with on tape in the NHL. They have to make the decision based on what they have, and we predict that Jacobs played his last game with the Devils.

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