New Jersey Devils: 5 Pleasant Surprises This Season

The New Jersey Devils were dreadful this past season, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some positives. Let’s go through some of the players that did much better than expected.

As we look back on last season and hopefully look towards better times, the New Jersey Devils hope they learned enough about the team this season to move forward towards better days. That’s the directive the prerogative, whatever noun you’d like to use to make this work. The Devils need to be playoff contenders next season, no questions asked.

To do that, they have to build around the players who did well this past season. Some of those players were surprises. We’re not talking about Jack Hughes, who was always supposed to be what he showed this season when he wasn’t injured. This isn’t even talking about Jesper Bratt, who had the best season of his career, but his analytics showed this was always possible. We are talking about the players who blew our minds this season. Which ones can the Devils build around for next season?

1. Dawson Mercer

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we? Dawson Mercer came in as a rookie who was going to get a look before going to the AHL. Then, Mercer dominated in the preseason. He had a really good showing next to Alex Holtz and Nolan Foote in the prospect came against the Boston Bruins, and then he built off that momentum.

Mercer had stretches where he was phenomenal and other stretches where he was invisible. That’s expected from the best rookies, so it’s not terribly surprising it happened to Mercer. He still finished the season with 42 points as a 19/20 year old. We haven’t seen the Calder Trophy voting yet, but we expect him to at least get some votes for the award. He was one of the better rookies for part of the season, and his overall numbers were really good.

Mercer was seventh amongst rookies in points, and he was just one point behind Cole Caufield who most believe had a phenomenal season. He had more points than Tanner Jeannot and Seth Jarvis. These are players many might put in a higher tier in terms of players this season. Mercer was just as good as any of them, and his season gives us hope for the future.

2. Jonas Siegenthaler

Let’s go with another obvious option. Jonas Siegenthaler didn’t have the best numbers on the team. He had just 14 points in 70 games including just one goal. So, how could someone with such a small offensive impact have such an impact overall on a terrible team? Siegenthaler, despite the issues of the Devils, had one of the best defensive impacts in the league.

Siegenthaler played just under 1,100 minutes at 5v5 this season. He allowed a total of 176 high-danger chances. That was the lowest on the team in terms of the top-six defensemen in terms of minutes.

Siegenthaler was also a huge reason why the penalty kill went from one of the worst in league history to well above average. He allowed just 47 high-danger chances when the other team had an advantage. Damon Severson and Ryan Graves had more minutes, but they both had 65 and 69 HDCA respectively. Siegenthaler was even on the ice for 10 high-danger chances for when on the penalty kill. He was the only one who was in double digits on the team. (All stats from Natural Stat Trick.)

There are 149 defensemen in the NHL who played 1,000 minutes at 5v5 last season. Siegenthaler ranks 17th in high-danger chances against. He was one of the best defensive defensemen in the NHL by any metric, and the Devils must be excited for him to do it again next season.

3. Nathan Bastian

This one is a surprise on multiple senses. For one, Nathan Bastian wasn’t even on the team to start the season. Our very own Dan Rice did a piece on Bastian when the Seattle Kraken came to New Jersey and Bastian was enjoying a return to the place he once called home. About a month later, Bastian was on waivers, and he was reunited with his friend and linemate Michael McLeod.

He was clearly something the Devils desperately needed. Despite playing just 60 games with the Devils, he was by far the hits leader on the team. He had 194 hits in those 60 games, throwing his body around unlikely anyone else on the team. Second on the team in hits was Michael McLeod, who was obviously impacted by the return of Bastian.

The Devils were in desperate need of some toughness before Bastian returned to New Jersey. He brought a fire the team was missing, and they used that to turn around a mindset that was allowing too many chances overall. Teams were getting into the zone too easily.

Bastian didn’t have the offensive impact he had last season, but he was scoring goals at one point. He had 11 in 60 games with the season after only 3 in 41 games last season. He could keep growing on that number as the Devils look to become a contender eventually.

4. Jimmy Vesey

Jimmy Vesey was once considered a phenomenal signing, but like other PTOs that turned into contracts before him, his impact fell off as the season got further into it. Vesey was asked to change how he played the game coming into the season, and to his credit, he was really good at what the Devils were asking him to do. He became a phenomenal penalty killer after only averaging about a minute per game of PK time in his career.

Vesey turned into the Devils top PK forward. No other player had more minutes when the other team had a man advantage, and Vesey was a huge reason the Devils PK was able to have the type of turnaround it did. He took on a certain mindset, and it really proved GM Tom Fitzgerald right for giving him a chance.

There were issues finding the right partner for him at 5v5. He didn’t exactly fit with McLeod and Bastian. They tried to make him part of a jumbled third line with Jesper Boqvist and Andreas Johnsson. The Devils even tried to throw Tomas Tatar in there for good measure. None of it really led to production.

Vesey was still someone who proved himself beyond expectations. Someone should sign him to one-way contract this offseason for his penalty killing alone. He proved he was still an NHL-caliber player at his age. This was something that wasn’t a certainty coming into training camp.