New Jersey Devils Have Limited Options For Alexander Holtz

There’s been a lot of hype about Swedish sharpshooter Alexander Holtz, from the time he was drafted, to a strong 2022 preseason performance, making the opening night roster, and scoring his first NHL goal on the first game of the season. Since then, Holtz has played in just three games and has yet to play since Ondrej Palat’s injury, indicating that he has fallen below fellow Swedes Jesper Boqvist and Fabian Zetterlund in the pecking order.

The New Jersey Devils have stormed their way to the top of the NHL, and now no reasonable blame can be placed on coach Lindy Ruff for not substituting Holtz into a team that’s playing just fine without him. Holtz isn’t getting game time in Utica or the NHL, so what should the team do with him now?

It goes without saying that Holtz has very little value to the organization watching every game from the press box.  When Holtz did play, the results weren’t exactly great. Over his four game cameo thus far, Holtz played 42:19, averaging 10:34 a night.

At 5v5, Holtz averages 1.65 shots/60. That figure is the lowest on the entire team by a comfortable margin – the next closest is Ondrej Palat with 3.33. Holtz is also down in the basement with Brendan Smith with the lowest ixGF/60 (individual expected goals for) rates. This is not necessarily to say Holtz has been bad, because he hasn’t, but the offense and good play in general just aren’t there at 5v5 and he has barely had any power play time to take pot shots from the circle.

Holtz had done particularly well with the man advantage, with 12.41 goals/60, the highest number of any Devils forward at the moment. It appears that Holtz is still not NHL ready just yet, and that’s OK. If it’s better for his development and the team doesn’t need him yet, no problem! He’s worked on some things to have some early, brief success and hasn’t been bad, but not being bad is the minimum you can ask of an NHL player. Let’s explore some options.