New Jersey Devils: Assessing Long-Term Plan Three Years Later
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils have drastically changed the plan from 2017, and one article makes that abundantly clear.
Going through a bevy of New Jersey Devils content every day usually leads to some strange articles, but for this writer one article from back in 2017 drew a lot of interest. This piece from Matt Larkin of The Hockey News (through Sports Illustrated) looks at the future of the Devils roster three years ago. It predicts what the Devils will look like in 2020. It’s absolutely fascinating.
"But even asking the Devils to compete for a playoff spot by 2019-20 feels very optimistic. When Shero arrived in 2015, he inherited the NHL’s most talent-barren roster."
This quote from Larkin, one of the best hockey writers in the game, shows a lot of our expectations and where the Devils roster was just three years ago. It was clear immediately after the Devils drafted Nico Hischier first overall that there was still a lot of work to be done. There was very little talent on the Devils in 2017, and possibly even less talent in the pipeline.
One thing that is abundantly clear, this Devils team needed talent. That’s why Ray Shero took a flier on Mirco Mueller. When he clearly overspent for the former 1st-round pick, he immediate became the team’s third-best prospect. And he wasn’t even considered that good of a prospect. It was Hischier, Michael McLeod, then Mueller.
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Speaking of McLeod, this article puts a lot of emphasis on his development. Larkin predicts that McLeod could be the Devils second-line center this past season. It wasn’t that far off at the time, coming off a season where McLeod carried the Mississauga Steelheads to the OHL Finals. We know what happened. Now, McLeod is still dwindling with the Binghamton Devils, his future with the organization is in question, he’s constantly added to fake trades, and he likely won’t ever play a top-two center on the Devils with Hischier and now Jack Hughes on the roster.
John Quenneville is another player that was expected to take a “long-term roster spot”. Obviously, that didn’t work out. Quenneville isn’t even in the organization anymore after the Devils traded him for John Hayden.
Larkin correctly predicted that the trade for Marcus Johansson was a short-term fix. He thought there would be a bidding war by the time he became a free agent last offseason and didn’t see him wanting to return to the Devils. He was at least partially right.
One interesting note is Larkin pointing out one fact about the Taylor Hall trade. It was a slam-dunk deal that the Devils do ten times out of ten. However, there wasn’t much left in terms of defensive talent after Adam Larsson went the other way. Larkin was hoping the Devils were a complete dumpster fire in 2017-18 so they could target Rasmus Dahlin. Instead, the Devils made the playoffs that season.
The Cory Schneider questions in the piece are kind of scary in their accuracy. Larkin basically asks whether he fits the timeline.
"Schneider can only do so much with no help in front of him. He’s signed through 2021-22 but is already 31. What comes first: a competitive Devils team that can make the most of Schneider’s ability, or an age-related decline? Some data suggests the latter has already begun. He was outplayed by Keith Kinkaid according to most metrics last year."
When looking at the full prediction for lines, a few things stand out. Obviously, he couldn’t make free agency predictions and he did this based solely on who was on the roster. His prediction for a top nine included names like Stefan Noesen (on the second line with Adam Henrique and McLeod), Nathan Bastian, and of course Quenneville. Miles Wood and Blake Speers surrounded Pavel Zacha on the fourth line. Mackenzie Blackwood was Schneider’s backup.
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Still, the best part about all of this is the third line defense. It consists of Yaroslav Dyblenko and Michael Kapla. One is currently playing in the KHL after spending one season in Binghamton. The other was traded for a flier on Ryan Murphy, who made it to one NHL game before his Devils career was relegated to the minors. Ignoring a second-line Steve Santini (it felt like it made sense at the time), this was the most wild prediction about the Devils roster. To be fair, the defensive prospect pool in 2017 was barren at best.
So, the moral of the story is things could be worse. The Devils current roster is at least on par with this prediction. Will Butcher is better than any of those bottom four defensemen. P.K. Subban at least has a shot to be a top-line defenseman while the team still has Damon Severson. There’s a lot of young talent to get excited about, which wasn’t the case at the time of Larkin’s writing. This year might have been a dumpster fire that Larkin was hoping for in 2018, but the Devils are about to get a really good prospect in the top ten of this draft on top of having the second-ranked young skaters in the entire league.