Assessing Future Of 5 Struggling New Jersey Devils Players
The New Jersey Devils have been struggling this season, and that leads to some players having trouble living up to expectations. Certain players came into the season with a certain expectation, and they are just not where the Devils or its fanbase wants them to be at this point. Sometimes injuries really impacted their play, or maybe they just never really hit the right notes on the offense or defense.
There are some players who clearly need work. We’re about 60 percent through the season, so the Devils know what they got in the lineup. With Dawson Mercer fitting on Jack Hughes top line, it’s really helped head coach Lindy Ruff put together a lineup that will last. It also helps that players are coming back from injury and the Devils are close to a full lineup.
What’s the future look like for these five struggling New Jersey Devils players?
It also makes it glaringly obvious when a player is underperforming when the Devils have their full lineup. Most of the offense is rocking and rolling. So when a player isn’t playing well, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Meanwhile, the defenders who are struggling always stick out. Their mistakes lead to goals more often than not. So, when they make a mistake, we see it pretty clearly.
Most of these players are signed beyond this season, or at the very least the Devils control their rights. That means the Devils have to figure out what to do with them next. Is everyone going to automatically get a qualifying offer? Will the Devils look to move them? Is this a simple slump? Let’s look at five Devils players who really struggled this season and see what’s next for them.
Ty Smith
This is the most obvious name on this list and also the one that is most important to fix. Ty Smith fell off a cliff this season, and we can’t figure out what happened. Ty Smith looks like the player that was here before the 2019-20 season. He avoids physicality, and when it comes to him, it causes him to make a mistake.
Even when there is no physicality, the Devils can’t trust Smith to make the right play to get in the right position. Smith has been on the ice for 39 goals against at 5v5. While that’s not tops on the team, he has 200 minutes less than most of the other starting defensemen. Smith allows a goal basically every 17 minutes at 5v5. Only Ryan Graves is allowing more goals, but that got a little thrown out of whack because of a bad stretch earlier this season.
So what comes next? That’s a hard question to answer. Smith was literally in the Calder Trophy conversation for parts of last season (although it was always Kirill Kaprizov who was going to win it). Now, he’s a healthy scratch for multiple games in a row. The Devils think they have a better chance to win with Smith in the owner’s box.
Let’s say Smith avoids any trade talk (people have mentioned him as a return possibility for Brock Boeser). The Devils need to spend an entire offseason working on fundamentals with Smith. He needs to get his instincts back. They are completely gone right now, but he can get them back. Once he does, things will get a lot easier for him. The Devils went from having a future top-line defenseman to having a player who’s one big question mark.
Janne Kuokkanen
This one might be the most confusing of them all. Janne Kuokkanen was a very productive player last season. He came into this season with a chance to earn a spot on the top line with Jack Hughes. He was paired there last season with Hughes and Yegor Sharangovich. Somehow, when he came into the season this year, he very quickly found himself in a third-line role.
The third line has been a point of contention for this team all season long. The Devils just haven’t been able to find the right players to put there. Lindy Ruff has a lot of trust for his fourth line led by Michael McLeod, especially in defensive situations, but the third line plays like a fourth line most of the time.
Right now, Janne Kuokkanen is injured and not playing. He’s been more out of sight out of mind for many. He was the key piece in the Sami Vatanen trade. He’s someone the Devils hope works out, but he’s not some they need to work out. There are prospects who can replace him. However, if the Kuokkanen from last year shows up again, there’s definitely a place for him on this roster.
There’s no actual timetable for Kuokkanen’s return. However, it might be best to keep him out as long as they can. Kuokkanen needed a reset more than anyone on the roster. This will give him a chance to re-evaluate what went wrong this season. He can come back and use his relentless motor and incredible skill to be the player he once was. Kuokkanen has another year on his contract, and the Devils have control of him after that. We’ll see where this goes, but the Devils will undoubtedly give Kuokkanen another chance.
Mackenzie Blackwood
Blackwood is also on the shelf after he spent most of the season dealing with a heel injury that might need surgery at some point. There’s no timetable for his return this season as the Devils continue with Jon Gillies and Nico Daws in net. Blackwood was once considered one of the pillars of this team. Now, there are only question marks around his future and the future of the Devils goaltending position.
Blackwood is 25 years old, and he’s starting to trend to having more bad games than good ones. He definitely has more bad stretches than he has good stretches, but that usually has to do with trying to play through injuries. It just doesn’t work for him. This season, if it’s already over, he will finish with a career-worst save percentage, GAA, GSAA, and pretty much every goalie stat there is. Out of 75 qualified goalies, only 14 have a worse save percentage than Blackwood this season.
It’s not like the Devils have an NHL-ready option waiting in the wings. Jonathan Bernier was supposed to give the Devils starter-quality minutes, but he had to get hip surgery. Now he’s an even bigger question mark than Blackwood. The Devils might be in a rough spot when it comes to the position.
More likely than not, the Devils will start next season with Blackwood getting another chance to be the starter. They might bring in another name to be a 1B option, the third such player in as many offseasons to sign here.
Tomas Tatar
The Devils fanbase was celebrating to the high heavens when they signed Tomas Tatar. He was an analytical darling despite getting benched in the postseason by the Montreal Canadiens. It was clear he needed a change of scenery, and the Devils felt like a good spot to do it. He could slot in next to Nico Hischier or Pavel Zacha and add an offensive flair to the top nine somewhere. Heck, he could even fill in next to Jack Hughes in a pinch.
That’s obviously not how it worked out. Tatar is on the third line like we expected could happen, but it’s with Jesper Boqvist. He’s struggling to score in his first season with the Devils. He has 22 points in 51 games. That’s not nearly enough. The Devils were hoping he would be at least a 55-60 point player. Right now, he’s on pace for 32 points.
Tatar, unlike the other players on this list, is a veteran. He’s had ups and downs and he knows how to work through them. Tatar just needs to find the right chemistry on the Devils. Honestly, it feels like by the end of the season, the Devils will try him with Nico Hischier again. They don’t want to completely call Tatar a sunk cost. He has value to the franchise despite not having much value outside of it.
Tatar just needs to get to the end of the season and try to get a point streak before it’s over. The Devils just need confidence from Tatar. He looks like he’s going through the motions, and that’s when he’s at his worst. Once he gets motivated, which will likely happen if the Devils are remotely competitive, Tatar will be a little better.
Christian Jaros
Christian Jaros was a part of the summer of size that Tom Fitzgerald put together this offseason. He added some big dudes, and Jaros was one of the biggest. He stands at 6’3, which gives the Devils the depth they needed on the blue line with the right amount of size. They only needed to give the San Jose Sharks Nick Merkley to make it happen, another tweener player only he’s a forward. The Devils have plenty of young forwards to play.
Jaros came in, and he’s been fine at times and not so great at times. There really isn’t much that he does really well. The hope was he’d grow into a new scheme with Alain Nasreddine. He’s ended up getting into 11 games this year, and despite the fact Lindy Ruff is looking for someone to take Smith’s place at the time, Jaros failed to do that. The Devils opted for Colton White instead.
The Devils need to make a decision on Jaros this offseason. He’s a restricted free agent. The Devils can just give him a qualifying offer and call it a day. He might decide to ask to go somewhere else since this clearly wasn’t the best fit.
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The future for Jaros is likely not in New Jersey. The Devils gave it the ole college try, but he never really found his footing here. He also got injured, which couldn’t have helped.