Dakota Mermis
This is a name we didn’t expect to ever make the Devils this season, but he’s been a nice surprise. The Devils signed Mermis in the offseason to a one-year deal. The 25-year-old defenseman was likely only going to play in the minors, despite having some NHL experience with the Arizona Coyotes. He’s had an interesting journey, going undrafted he won the OHL Championship twice with the London Knights. He became captain of the Tuscon Roadrunners, the Coyotes’ AHL affiliate. He has a lot of intangibles.
Mermis has been pretty good in ten games with the big-league club. He has a 47.23 CF% at 5v5, which is good for 10th on the team with at least 10 games played. A goal was scored at 5v5 against him only once every two games, but his lines were scoring about once per game. His underlying numbers look really good.
Mermis needed more time to prove he deserved an NHL spot in 2020-21. He scored his first NHL goal this season, which came against the defending champion St. Louis Blues. He was building off crazy momentum.
Mermis was looking to show he deserved an NHL shot next season. Whether that was with the Devils or another franchise, if he kept playing like he was before the pause, he was at least going to get a good chance to stick in the big leagues. Now, he’ll likely have to start from the minors again.