New Jersey Devils: Predicting Opening Night Forward Lines
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils are going to look very, very different this season. After an offseason where they added Dougie Hamilton, Ryan Graves, and Jonathan Bernier to solidify the back half, it’s the forwards that are going through the biggest wholesale changes.
The lines to start even last season looked completely different. After making multiple trades during the season then making major changes in the offseason, this looks like a whole different team. These were the lines in the first two games of last season.
Sharangovich-Hughes-Palmieri
Johnsson-Zacha-Gusev
Wood-Zajac-Boqvist
Bastian-McLeod-Kuokkanen
Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac were traded to the New York Islanders before Zajac returned to New Jersey to retire this offseason. Nikita Gusev was cut in the middle of last season because he could not cut it in the Lindy Ruff offense. Nathan Bastian is now in Seattle after he was taken in the expansion draft. The rest of the players are on the roster, but most of them are in very different roles.
Which lines make the most sense for the New Jersey Devils?
When looking at what the line combinations might be, one has to try and predict what Lindy Ruff could do. There are at least two spots wide open in the forward group. There are three if you consider Andreas Johnsson someone who will go in and out of the lineup. It seems like that’s not a ton of change, but the team is going to look much different.
Obviously, Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt weren’t in the lineup during the first few weeks last season. That’s not the case here. Also, Dawson Mercer and Alex Holtz are making a real push to make the lineup. Have they done enough to make it into the opening night roster? If they do make the reason, which line should they play on? Should they play together? There are a lot of questions to answer, but let’s make some predictions on the opening night lines when they take on the Chicago Blackhawks.