Will Butcher
Will Butcher is another player going through a disastrous season last year that, but the difference between Subban and Hughes and Butcher is that Butcher is not someone expected to be one of the top players on the team. If he doesn’t get it together, it’s much more likely the Devils would move on from Butcher.
Obviously, Butcher is still on the Devils. He is currently the team’s second-line left defenseman. Before the Ryan Murray trade, he was the only guaranteed left-handed defenseman on the roster. He was on this team barring a trade of some kind. However, the Devils weren’t shopping for the kind of player that warranted trading away a 25-year-old blue liner who still has an interesting upside.
Butcher is another player who can reset after a rough season. He really doesn’t have a spot solidified on this roster, even if this is the team the Devils are going into the season with. The hope based on his experience and his salary is that Butcher would be at least a second-line player. However, maybe he finds his way on the first line after an offseason of intense training. Or, maybe he plays a lot like he did last season and he finds himself on the third line with Ty Smith jumping him. He really needs to earn power play time in order to be truly reliable in his position. After John Hynes and Alain Nasreddine took him off his most powerful unit, his impact was diminished. An offseason to work on those inefficiencies and to build back his confidence can only help.