New Jersey Devils: 5 Prospects Facing Make-Or-Break Seasons
The New Jersey Devils are coming into the season with a ton of hype. After three games, they have two wins. Things have looked good despite a laundry list of injuries impacting the team. There are stars like Jack Hughes (when he returns from injury), Dougie Hamilton, Nico Hischier, Ryan Graves, and others who could grow into that.
All those players came to the Devils as obvious NHL players. They never had to face a “make-or-break” season. They made the NHL and became regulars pretty quickly. However, there are some players in the Devils organization that aren’t in that situation.
Which New Jersey Devils prospect needs to prove himself this season?
The Devils have others on the roster that stepped up as a prospect in order to make the NHL roster. Yegor Sharangovich wasn’t expected to make the NHL, but he took a major step last season before the NHL season even started. He dominated the KHL, and then came to the Devils and did just as well.
There are other prospects that didn’t fare so well. Reid Boucher seemed to face multiple make-or-break seasons, and he never made it work in the NHL. Alexander Urbom is another prospect who failed to make it work.
Then, there’s Michael McLeod. He was on the cusp of fans giving up on him. Last season, he was given one last chance under new head coach Lindy Ruff. He quickly became one of the most reliable players on the team, and he finally found a way to turn his speed into NHL production.
It can go either way, and the Devils have a few prospects who have to show something this season to prove they have a chance to make the NHL roster in the future.
Colton White
This one might be outdated very, very quickly. The Devils placed defenseman Colton White on waivers on Friday. It made very little sense as White showed some good prowess in the first two games of the season. With the Devils down both Damon Severson and Ty Smith, White stepped into the lineup. Now, after showing he’s a capable sixth or seventh defenseman, the Devils have opened him up to every team in the league. This should go well.
Anyway, let’s say White returns to the Devils. It’s clear that he isn’t as important to this franchise as Mason Geertsen or Christian Jaros, two players they’ve acquired over the past few months. He’s one of those draft picks that was a part of that weird 2015 NHL Draft that had both Lou Lamoriello and Ray Shero at the helm. Who knows how Tom Fitzgerald looks at White as a prospect.
They have to know there’s a good chance he’s leaving, so if he does return (say another team puts him on waivers), White has to prove that he can be someone who can regularly jump into the NHL lineup. He has to be a legit top-line defenseman when he goes down to Utica. That will be difficult with so many talented players already there, but he needs to play better than Kevin Bahl, Michael Vukojevic, and Nikita Okhotyuk.
White has some NHL skills, but there are some holes he needs to fill. His 5v5 numbers were great in those two games. He was on the ice for eight high-danger chances, and the other team only got three high-danger chances while he was on the ice. Not sure how he can prove himself more to the Devils, but it’s clear he has to. At 24 years old and with a lot of young defensemen coming up, he’s running out of time.
Jesper Boqvist
Jesper Boqvist should have been penciled into that number-three center spot when Travis Zajac was sent to the New York Islanders. He wasn’t, although he did get a lot of games to prove himself last season. Boqvist played 28 games last season and put up seven points. There was no way that the Devils could just hand him a spot based on those numbers. He has to do much better than one point every four games if he wants to be a skilled forward in the NHL.
He’s only played one game for Utica as of this writing (he plays Friday night, but this was written before they take the ice). Right now, he’s not even playing with top prospect Alexander Holtz. He’s on a line with Nolan Foote, who is a top prospect himself, and Graeme Clarke. Maybe that was a decision due to chemistry since Holtz is new to the team, but after Holtz’s first performance, he needs to be with the best center on the team.
Is that Boqvist? He’s not even on the team’s first power-play unit. That’s very bad news for a player who was supposed to be a dynamic playmaker after the Devils took him in the 2nd round of the 2017 NHL Draft.
Boqvist is the one player facing the biggest challenges. The Devils are watching more and more young players take NHL spots, which means they will hold those spots for a long time. Boqvist isn’t guaranteed anything like he was in years past, and now he needs to prove he’s an NHL forward.
Gilles Senn
Is Gillen Senn still technically a New Jersey Devils prospect. Well, yes. The Devils apparently tried to re-sign him this offseason, but Senn’s contract was up, and he wanted to try his luck overseas. He signed with the famous HC Davos of the top league in Switzerland. He’s played in 10 games already this season, and he has a .907 save percentage.
The Devils signed Nico Daws and Akira Schmid to be the starter and the backup in Utica this season. The Devils had Evan Cormier, Jeremy Brodeur, and Senn last season. They made a wholesale change to the goaltender position after what was a disastrous year for their AHL franchise. Senn was pretty bad in his second season with the Binghamton Devils, posting an .895 save percentage over 17 games.
Last season was a mess, especially for the Binghamton Devils. After a miraculous run was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic back in 2019-20, they just didn’t have the same juice in 2021. They were forced to play in Newark in front of an empty crowd, so the team just never clicked, and a young defense allowed too many good chances. Senn should have helped more to stop those chances, but it is what it is at this point.
Senn is likely done with the Devils and vice versa, but we’ve seen crazier things happen in the NHL. Jesse Puljujärvi is currently playing games for the Edmonton Oilers. Maybe Senn has a great season in Switzerland, and the Devils find a way to bring him back.
A.J. Greer
A.J. Greer isn’t a player the Devils have terribly high hopes for, but they did bring him in from the New York Islanders organization during the Kyle Palmieri-Travis Zajac trade. The former Colorado Avalanche draft pick was able to get into an NHL game last year after spending the first few with the Binghamton Devils. He had an outside shot of making the New Jersey Devils, but it always seemed likely he was going to start in Utica.
In his first game with the Utica Comets, Greer had 14 penalty minutes and an assist. It was quite the night for the soon-to-be 25 year old. Greer needs to show he is more than a minor league hockey player this season. The Devils are putting him on a line with Holtz. That should give him a lot of easy assists while he’s with the team. He’s also with Chase De Leo, another productive AHL player.
Greer is on the top line, which is not something people expected coming into the season. He’s playing over Nolan Foote, a top Devils prospect, Fabian Zetterlund, someone who’s been with the team for years, and Joseph Gambardella, a veteran they signed in the offseason. That’s a huge opportunity for Greer, but if he can’t do something with it, it might lead to the Devils going through the motions this season before moving on.
Aarne Talvitie
Of all the players on the list, former Penn State standout Aarne Talvitie has the longest rope, but he has to show something this year because since his major knee injury at the World Junior Championships in 2019, he hasn’t been the same. Before the injury, he had 16 points in 17 games for the Nittany Lions. For a freshman still learning how to play on a North American ice surface, that was very good. Before the injury in the gold medal game, Talvitie helped team Finland with 7 points in 7 games. He was very, very good as a prospect.
Since then, it’s been all downhill. He only had 19 points in 30 games for Penn State the next season. That dropped to 13 points in 21 games in the pandemic shortened season last year. He jumped into the AHL later that season, and he ended up scoring just three points in 18 games. That’s not good enough, obviously.
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This season, he already has a point with the Utica Comets. He scored a goal in the Comets first win against the Rochester Americans. That’s already as many goals as he had last season. If he can show some of the promise he had in his freshman season in Happy Valley, the Devils might be looking at someone who can contribute on the next level. If not, Talvitie is at risk of losing his spot to some of the other young players looking to make an impact.