5 Players Who’ve Played Their Last Games With New Jersey Devils

4. Miles Wood

We’ve gone back and forth on this one, but Miles Wood has played his last game with the only franchise he’s ever known. Wood has been one of the most controversial players during this era of Devils hockey. Wood was a fourth-round pick that quickly showed he had NHL chops. One of the last Lou Lamoriello draft picks to actually play for the Devils, Wood’s loss, along with Severson’s, would make Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier the longest-tenured Devils players.

Wood brings something to the lineup nobody else can claim. He’s as fast as anyone on the team. He plays with an edge, something many believe is always needed with such a small lineup. Wood has seen success in the past, but it is always inconsistent. His career high in points is 32, and that was back in 2018. This past season, he had 27 points.

Wood was coming off a major hip injury, but at the time one would expect him to play his best, he disappeared. On three different occasions this season, he went a full month without a goal. That’s unacceptable on a team like the Devils, which needs goals in bunches to be successful.

Someone will look at Wood’s body of work and his skill set and talk themselves into giving him a nice contract. It just takes one team to think they should pay Wood like a second-line player. That team is out there, and it likely isn’t the Devils. They just can’t afford to play bottom-six players that kind of premium.