5 Players Who Played Their Last Game With New Jersey Devils
The New Jersey Devils have a lot of questions to answer this offseason, but we learned a lot about this team throughout the year. We also learned who will never spend another moment with the team again.
Right now, the New Jersey Devils are spending their last moments of the season before locker room cleanout on Monday. They will all go their separate ways. Captain Nico Hischier will spend a few months in Switzerland unless he decides to play in the World Championships first. Jack Hughes will likely spend time with family, especially his brothers who all had their seasons end in disappointing fashion. Jesper Bratt is heading back to Sweden while his new contract is negotiated. It’s like the last day of school. Everyone will go their separate ways, but when they come back, not everyone will be there.
The Devils had 41 players hit the ice for them this season. It’s actually not that much. The Colorado Avalanche had 39 players hit the ice. They are the best team in the NHL. However, every team is going to say goodbye to a player that’s never going to spend another minute in their jersey. It might be because they will get a better opportunity elsewhere, because the team no longer needs that player, or it might be because a player leaves the game entirely.
The Devils have a little bit of everything. They are the youngest team in the NHL, with 23 players under the age of 25, then another 10 players between the ages of 25 and 27, it’s not like the Devils have to get rid of most of the team. A lot of these players are nowhere near done with their development yet.
However, there are plenty of players who have had their last game in a Devils uniform. As with everything this dreadful season, it all starts with the goalie.
Andrew Hammond
The New Jersey Devils traded for an injured Andrew Hammond at the NHL Trade Deadline. He eventually got healthy enough to play, and the Devils wanted a goalie who was at least good enough to win. The Devils gave up Nate Schnarr to make the trade happen. It wasn’t a lot to give up on paper, but Schnarr had shown something in the AHL this season. He had 26 points in 43 games, showing he had something more than previous seasons.
Hammond came to the Devils when they were desperate and when it seemed like anything would be an upgrade over what they had. He allowed 13 goals in his first two games with the Devils. It wasn’t exactly a rousing endorsement for his time with the Devils.
If Hammond played well, he had a chance to take over the Scott Wedgewood role as the third goalie option, but those first two games showed that wasn’t possible. He did have a few decent performances, including one where he ended the season of the Vegas Golden Knights and ended the tenure of former Devils coach Peter DeBoer.
Those few performances wasn’t enough to save him in the eyes of the Devils. Will another team bring him in to play in the AHL? Maybe, but the Devils already have Nico Daws, Akira Schmid, and Marek Mittens if either of them get hurt. The Devils need sure things in net, and Hammond is not that anymore.
Jon Gillies
Sticking with goalies, Jon Gillies was at times awful this season and at other times usable. He was never really good, and the Devils really didn’t give up anything to get him. He was traded by the St. Louis Blues for “future considerations”. It’s the hockey version of a “player to be named later” when a player is traded for basically nothing. Gillies came in to give the Devils a lift after Bernier went on the shelf with a hip injury. At the time, Nico Daws was also injured. Schmid proved he couldn’t be in the NHL, so the Devils got something for nothing.
It looked like a good enough move at first. He made 39 saves in his first game of the season, but that was with the Blues against the Anaheim Ducks. Through January, he mostly played backup to Mackenzie Blackwood as Lindy Ruff put all the pressure on his starting goalie. Gillies was able to have some decent performances, but none of his games were complete disasters. He allowed four goals to the Carolina Hurricanes, but that could happen to anyone.
Then February hit, and Cinderella Jon Gillies turned into a pumpkin. On February 1st, Gillies allowed six goals against to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Two weeks later, he did it again to the Tampa Bay Lightning. In his very next game, which came 10 days later, he allowed six against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Gillies only started two games since then as the Devils leaned on Daws for the rest of the season. He cleaned up a couple of times in games that were already over. It was just a bad season all around, and it was the final run for Gillies with the Devils.
Jimmy Vesey
Jimmy Vesey was better than expected this season with the New Jersey Devils. He completely changed his focus and likely saved his NHL career. Being a penalty kill specialist with scoring upside will get you a contract with something. However, it likely doesn’t happen with the New Jersey Devils.
The Devils would likely give Vesey another PTO to see if another young player could take his spot, but he likely signs on with another team before that happens. Vesey played 981 minutes this season, 15th best on the Devils. 137 of those minutes came on the penalty kill. No other Devils forward killed more minutes than Vesey. He had a role, and he played it well.
The issue is Vesey’s offense fell off in a major way. Was that because he was going through the motions a little bit towards the end? We didn’t see that, but it’s hard to blame him if he did. We thought he might get traded at the deadline to a team looking for PK help in the playoffs. It didn’t happen, and he actually got injured towards the end of the season.
Vesey finished with eight goals and 15 assists this season. From February 13th to April 1st, he had one assist. It’s not good to have runs like that, and that will scare the Devils off from giving him a guaranteed NHL contract.
Mason Geertsen
The New Jersey Devils claimed Mason Geertsen off waivers right before the season started from the New York Rangers, and he spent the entire season on the NHL roster. He did his job, which is to hit people and fight and all that. He didn’t do much else. He got into 25 games this season, and he had zero points. No matter what he provides to this team in terms of toughness, a team can’t afford to have a player with zero points on the roster.
Geertsen made his NHL debut with the Devils this season. The former fourth-round pick spent seven years in the minor leagues before he was given his shot on an NHL roster. He had a few good chances at the end of the season, but never scoring is always going to stand out.
The Devils fanbase would revolt if they brought back Geertsen. He seems like a great locker room guy, and we don’t want to say anything bad about him because he appears to be a legit good dude, but like Kurtis Gabriel before him, Geertsen is going to be a one-hit wonder on the roster. In fact, it’s likely this will be the most time he spends on an NHL roster for the rest of his career.
Geertsen is going to keep playing hockey until he runs out of leagues to play in. He’s fought his way up from the ECHL to the NHL. He was able to make his entire upside on his contract, taking home $725,000 before taxes. It takes some people 14 years to make that kind of money. He made life-changing money, and he was able to live out a dream. We’re happy for him, but it’s not enough to warrant another year in New Jersey.
Christian Jaros
This is cheating, but some might not even realize what happened between the Devils and Christian Jaros this season. He’s no longer on the roster after the Devils tried to send him to the AHL. After playing 11 games in the NHL, the Devils were trying to put him down in the minors in order to bring up fellow tall man Kevin Bahl. Jaros clearly didn’t like that, and he was eventually placed on unconditional waivers for the purpose of terminating his contract.
The issue for Jaros is this came on March 24th. If he were to sign with a team, he would not be eligible for the playoffs. For non-playoff teams, they aren’t looking to sign 25-year-old defensemen who have little upside at this point outside of their size.
The Devils traded Nick Merkley for Jaros in the offseason, a second Taylor Hall trade piece that left for a player on this list. The Devils clearly lost that deal even though Merkley is not having a great season. He played nine games in the NHL this season, and he played well in the AHL. Then, the Rangers traded for him, sending Anthony Bitteto to the Sharks.
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Jaros and Merkley didn’t do so well with their next stops, and now they are both need to find new homes. Maybe the Rangers keep Merkley, but nobody picked up Jaros after his contract was terminated. It seems like a very messy divorce for the Devils that fell under the radar. It wasn’t the right move, but Merkley likely doesn’t have a great season with the Devils, either.