One of the biggest questions for the New Jersey Devils heading into the new season that isn't related to Luke Hughes is how they plan on deploying their wingers.
For much of last season, veteran free agent signing Stefan Noesen platooned with Nico Hischier and Timo Meier on the top line, while a trio of Ondrej Palat, Jack Hughes, and Jesper Bratt filled in behind them.
As for the bottom-six, though? It was a trainwreck that frequently lacked any sort of chemistry, and their lack of production cost the Devils severely come playoff time.
With all of the aforementioned players returning (including Palat, apparently), the Devils and head coach Sheldon Keefe are going to have some decisions to make. Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald went out and signed well-traveled wingers Evgenii Dadonov and Connor Brown in addition to newcomer Arseniy Gritsyuk, who is making his highly anticipated jump from the KHL later this summer.
Given how Palat struggled for most of the last season, and how Noesen ended the season with only six goals in his final 38 games, opportunities are there for the taking for the newcomers.
It's a shame for Noesen, too, as he started the season with 16 goals, 11 assists, and 27 points in his first 40 games, including four tallies on the power play. However, his lack of foot speed and versatility ultimately made him less effective in a larger role in higher-stakes games.
This doesn't mean that the 32-year-old Noesen can't still play an important role with less responsibility.
In the past, particularly with the Metropolitan Division rival Carolina Hurricanes, Noesen has shown that he can thrive in a possession-based system, where his speed matters less and his size and puck skills matter more.
In the 2023-24 season, Noesen and now-traded Hurricanes center Jack Drury played 387 minutes together at 5-on-5, owning 64.06% of the shot attempts (Corsi for), out-scored opponents 21-11, out-chanced opponents 192-109, and had 16 high-danger goals to their opponents' six, per Natural Stat Trick.
Drury, while someone I wouldn't truly classify as a slow skater, ranked below the 50th percentile in 20-22 MPH bursts two years in a row, according to NHL EDGE, but ranked in the 93rd and 96th percentiles, respectively, in offensive zone time in those two years.
Based on this, we can deduce that, for the Devils to get more out of Noesen and to create opportunities for others, the 6-foot-1 winger should be paired with a center who can play that kind of game.
And, given that Dawson Mercer is currently queued up to be the Devils' No. 3 center to start 2025-26, the next best option for Noesen's center is going to be Cody Glass. In the 2024-25 season, Glass ranked in the 93rd percentile for offensive zone time, per NHL EDGE. See where this is going?
By moving Noesen down with Glass, the Devils can then move a player like Gritsyuk up to the top-six, where he can play with an experienced, more defensively-inclined center like Nico Hischier to help hide the inevitable defensive warts that'll appear initially.
By extension, Gritsyuk will be able to see the ice more, learn, and play an offensive brand of hockey alongside Hischier and Meier.
That leaves Dadonov, Palat, and Brown to jockey for a position flanking Hughes and Bratt, with the two players missing out joining Mercer on the third line.
Keefe and Co. will have free reign to mix and match with this group of Devils forwards, but the next move for Noesen should be the clearest of the bunch.