Looking At New Jersey Devils Roster Prior To Training Camp

The season is quickly approaching and hockey news and talk will finally be speeding up after a quiet few months. While it is early to look at things since training camp and preseason can and will change a lot, let’s take a quick look at the state of the New Jersey Devils and the things they could be looking at this season.

Starting with the top six, the team added Ondrej Palat. He is a good player and is here for the long term. When it comes to his first season with the Devils, he will undoubtedly help them in a big way. Expect to see him playing high up in the lineup all season. He is a great two-way player with the competition this team needs. It will be interesting to see who he plays with. Put him with Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt who have years of chemistry already. The two have not had a good third man on the line yet and the difference that comes with upgrading to Palat from Pavel Zacha is a big deal. This line would have two solid two-way players and can take most of the hard matchups and Bratt is a legit play driver.

For the second line, the Devils could and should just go high octane and make a line that will score nearly every game. Jack Hughes and Yegor Sharangovich in the short time they have had together thanks to injuries’ have shown a lot of chemistry. Sharangovich struggled without Hughes, but with him, he has looked like a legit threat to score 30 goals. He has the potential to be a scorer on the level of Kyle Palmieri. Fortunately for the team, his age is far younger.

These two need to be absolutely paired up again, but where it gets interesting is once again with the final member of the line. Dawson Mercer took the role at the end of the year and it pulled him from the long slide after his hot start so he is likely the number one candidate. He can play center as well, so there is the option to slide him to the third line. The other option is Alexander Holtz who is a natural sniper and lit up the AHL. He did struggle last season in the NHL with two points in nine games, but what was most surprising is that he looked a little overwhelmed and wasn’t doing anything much of anything in those games.

It is hard for young players obviously, look at Hughes’s first season, but in the preseason Holtz looked like he had a strong case to be on the roster and so expectations when he was up should have been that they were calling up a contributing player. If Holtz is going to be up this season the Devils need to give him decent minutes with other skilled players even though there will be growing pains.

When it comes to the bottom six, the team has an insane number of choices and a lot of competition. Players need to show something or they will get passed over. Overall, that’s great. The only problem is teams have a habit of sitting younger players thanks to guys being on expensive deals. Erik Haula should be a good fit as 3C despite the fact that he has bounced around between 6 teams in 7 years. With a record like that, no one should be looking at him long-term as of now.

Jesper Boqvist is the other name to look at for 3C. Despite his growth feeling slow at times and how many players passed him over, he really looked like an NHL player last season and like he had earned this spot so there will be a fair bit of competition for this role. Boqvist or Haula could also replace McLeod and they are both more skilled players but he does bring that intensity which might just be more important on a fourth line, one that should be playing 10-12 minutes a night.

On the wings, Tomas Tatar and Andreas Johnsson are still on the roster so likely will be playing on the third line with one of those centers above or perhaps Mercer just due to the cost. While I would personally love to see Miles Wood and Nathan Bastian back as a pair on the fourth line, it might not happen. Fabian Zetterlund looked strong at the end of the year and could make a strong case that he deserves the spot and Nolan Foote does have the potential to do the same. They need depth scoring and by the end of the year, expect them to come up.

Palat-Hischier-Bratt

Sharangovich-Hughes-Mercer/Holtz

Johnsson/Mercer-Haula-Tatar

Wood-McLeod-Bastian

Extras-Boqvist/Geertsen

This is the best this team has looked up front in a long time which gives fans a ton of optimism. The top two lines should be putting up a lot of goals. If the fourth line just does its job like they did two seasons ago, they will make the team harder to play against.

My biggest concern is the third line though it is one that could be gone by the deadline/next season so we will just have to take it for what it is. All three are UFAs and should be played if they are playing alright just to get value late in the season unless this team is in a legit playoff race. When the deadline comes there would be no harm in playing a Holtz/Boqvist/Zetterlund line and the team would be able to find out if they are ready to take the step with no risk.