New Jersey Devils: Pre-Season Look At Expansion Draft
New Jersey Devils Forwards To Protect:
Nico Hischier
Roster players who do not need to be protected
Nikita Gusev, Jack Hughes, Jesper Boqvist
Last two spot candidates
With these players protected it will leave a few players worth noting to fight for the last spot.
Travis Zajac who is 35 and on the last few years of his career. He has always been a great Devil and is still a 3rd line center in the league with enough to give and teach the younger players. While it might seem odd or a little cold of the organization I do not believe he will be protected. The expansion team should be looking for younger players for the most part and picking an expiring contract of a guy who probably doesn’t want to move for anything but a cup run would be a poor choice.
Michael McCleod
The former 1st-round pick of the Devils in 2016 has been a disappointment. At 22 years old McLeod should have probably broken the roster now on a bad team or in the very least been pushing people as a later developer in the AHL.
The last two seasons, he has split time between the leagues and in the NHL has been invisible most games on top of only putting up just 5 assists in 33 games. In the minors in 2018-19, he had 33 points in 55 games which would have been respectable if he had more than 6 goals.
He followed it up this year as a team veteran and regressed to 23 points in 47 games, once again with only 8 goals. His time to make the Devils is fast passing by him. Even with Zajac likely gone in a few years, his spot as the two-way center belongs to Pavel Zacha now. It is also very obvious at this point the Devils top six future hangs on Hischier and Hughes as a 1-2 punch.
Miles Wood,
The big body fast skater who drives the opposing team and fans crazy at times is a guy who might get a lot of look by Seattle. When he is on his game he is a force but his habit of skating hard and making absolutely nothing of high danger scoring chances but shooting it into the pads at a terrible angle and taking stupid penalties keep him down. If he ever figured it out or got a better shot in the off season Wood could absolutely be a 20 goal scorer but as it is now is a fourth liner on a good team.
And with the last two forward spots the Devils protect…
Nick Merkley
Merkley had a strong showing with the big club in a short time last year and he was a noticeable positive impact not just on the score sheet. He had a good season in the AHL despite coming over mid season and the B-Devils turned it around at the end on top of his strong season in Finland’s Liiga so far. Merkley is a prime candidate to play for the Devils this season and next in a depth role on a scoring line and has good potential going forward.
Janne Kuokkanen, an RFA after this year, was acquired for Sami Vatanen and has already shown the Devils a ton. He tore up the AHL last year while playing with the Charlotte Checkers scoring 42 points in 52 games. He kept it up in his short time with the B-Devils, putting up 6 points in 4 games. He might have been a little late blooming but he is a high end prospect and going forward should be a middle six player.
Th Devils should be planning for the future not the current team. While this will surprise a lot of people, it may be better to take a chance on some solid bets with the chance of pushing further than protecting bottom end players or higher picks who have not panned out.