The New Jersey Devils continue to make smart moves this offseason and it is a good sign that things should be changing for the better. Competition brings out the best in players and giving away spots even for a younger team is foolish though they clearly still have the opportunity to make the team if they can out-compete players in camp and earn it.
The players currently signed to a professional tryout are forwards Jimmy Vesey, Mark Jankowski, and defensemen Tyler Wotherspoon. All three are 27 or 28 years old and have some NHL experience but none have really found long-term success which has led them here.
Vesey was once one of the most sought-after players from college who elected to stay long enough to sign with who they wanted instead of their drafted team much like former Devil Will Butcher. He was an absolute monster for Harvard and even won the Hobey Baker award for best player.
In his first three seasons with the rival New York Rangers, he was a solid depth player and showed quite the scoring touch with 16,17, and 17 goals. Despite this, he was moved for a third-round pick to Buffalo where he dropped to 9 goals and 20 points in his only full season there. It is safe to say that that franchise and how things work there probably had more than a little to do with it.
This last season he split time with Toronto where opportunity was lacking and with the Canucks where he never really got going but it was in the end just one season. The Leafs are a strong team but unfortunately for Vesey that meant playing 11 minutes a night which would hurt anyone’s game. 5 goals and 8 points in 50 games is not a good stat line, even for a fourth liner. here is some good potential for a bounce-back in a depth role with the Devils and if he can find that scoring touch from his Ranger days then putting him next to Wood and McLeod would keep the line a physical scoring threat.
Jankowski is another interesting choice and much like Vesey, he was a decent scorer at the start of his career. With the Calgary Flames, he put up 17 and 14 goals before dropping to 5 with then and then 4 in Pittsburg. He is a big body at 6’4 and pretty much everything said about Vesey fits the bill for Jankowski as well so there is nothing much to say on it other than that either one could take the final roster spot and should fit in well with the team.
On the defensive end, giving Tyler Wotherspoon a shot doesn’t feel like an NHL move. In the NHL he has played 30 games spread out over four years and put up 5 assists with a low Corsi and Fenwick score of 44%. He really is not an NHL defender but is a proven AHL defender who could play some big minutes and help the developing players down there such as Bahl and Walsh who will likely start the season with him.