New Jersey Devils center Cody Glass will be out for a few weeks after suffering an upper-body injury during New Jersey's win over the Maple Leafs on Tuesday night.
Head coach Sheldon Keefe said this about the injury on Friday: "The exact period, not quite sure, but it's not a day-to-day situation. We're hoping it's no more than a couple of weeks, but we'll see how it goes."
Cody Glass missed the Devils' Wednesday night win against the Minnesota Wild. This led to line changes and a slight change to the second power-play unit. Dawson Mercer moved to center on the third line, having Paul Cotter and Connor Brown alongside him. Arseny Gritsyuk moved to the second line alongside Nico Hischier and Timo Meier. Then, Stefan Noesen replaced Cody Glass on the PP2, making the finished unit be Luke Hughes, Gritsyuk, Stefan Noesen, Ondrej Palat, and Timo Meier. Sheldon Keefe tends to shift the power-play units around, so things may look different for the Devils in their next game.
This injury will showcase the skills and versatility of Dawson Mercer, as he now has to play a position he played in last season when players went down due to injury. He showed flashes in the middle last season, but we got to see him there in action. Against the Wild, Mercer had two assists and a +2 plus/minus.
In 5-on-5 play, the line of Cotter-Mercer-Brown had a CF% (Corsi For Percentage) of 61% and an SF% (Shots For Percentage) of 66.7%. This line was dominant all night long and spent a ton of time in the offensive zone. He only took two faceoffs, winning one and losing the other. Faceoffs were an area of concern for Mercer last season. He took 237 face-offs last year and only won 96 of them, putting his face-off win percentage at 40.5%.
Dawson Mercer will have multiple chances now going forward to display his all-around game at the center position, possibly making GM Tom Fitzgerald's job even harder when it comes to a new contract. The Devils will stick with the same lines tonight, keeping Mercer in the middle on the third line. Nothing has been said just yet regarding the power-play units; the only potential change would likely be the swapping of Dougie Hamilton and Luke Hughes.