Projecting New Jersey Devils Opening Night Roster

It’s way too early, but not too, too early to start thinking about the New Jersey Devils opening night roster for the 2022-23 season. Most of the players won’t be reporting to training camp for another 2-3 weeks, but I’m here to help you pass the time with my way too early projection for the team that we will see take the ice on October 13 in Philadelphia.

Atomic Locks

First things first, let’s get the locks out of the way. These are the players that we all know and agree (most of us, there’s always one…) will be on the opening night roster – barring any injury or unforeseen circumstances, obviously.

Forwards (7): Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Ondrej Palat, Yegor Sharangovich, Dawson Mercer, Erik Haula.

Defense (6): Dougie Hamilton, Damon Severson, Ryan Graves, Jonas Siegenthaler, John Marino, Brendan Smith.

Goalies (2): Mackenzie Blackwood, Vitek Vanecek.

As you can see, we already have 15 of the 23 spots spoken for, and there are a few others that I likely could have added, but for argument’s sake (and this article) I’d like to see some competition for those final eight spots. And I think we’ll see it too. Obviously, the big battle will be at the forward position. Still, the battle for the final defenseman spot will be very intriguing to me – and one of the biggest storylines I’ll be following as training camp kicks off.

But back to the forward battle – one thing that GM Tom Fitzgerald mentioned during his end-of-season presser that has stuck with me all summer long was this quote about the roster:

“We have a lot of the same, upfront. We’ve got some nice players, some really nice players, talented players, but I think we have a lot of the same; I don’t want a lot of the same. It’s time to start mixing and matching, and building a team.”

“Especially up front, be harder to play against. Heavier skill, not just dump pucks in, but straight line players are important to successful teams. We do have young talent, we all know that. But that’s the exciting part for me as the manager in building what I believe is not only a team that can compete to get into the playoffs, but also compete in the playoffs.”

A lot of the players that maybe you thought I would have had on the list of Atomic Locks above are, the same. The same kind of player. That doesn’t mean they are bad players, they just aren’t really what the team needs right now.