With 46 days left until New Jersey Devils season, we look at #46 Mike Sislo

The 2023-24 New Jersey Devils season opens in just 52 days (at the time of the writing). On October 4, the Devils will take on the Buffalo Sabres in Prague, Czechia. To get ready for the season, we're doing a daily piece countdown of all the numbers of the Devils sweaters and moments in Devils franchise history. Since we are 46 days away, we will focus on a player who, in 3 seasons, didn’t make a strong impression in the NHL, Mike Sislo.

When Mike Sislo, the forward from New Hampshire University, went undrafted in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, the Devils picked him up in hopes of being a good depth piece, and he signed his entry-level contract on April 5, 2011. When Sislo was placed in Albany toward the end of the 2010-11 season, he only played three games, not having any production in those games.

The following season, he spent the entire season in Albany. He produced a 27-point season, which was a decent start for him. The following two seasons, his numbers went from an average 26-point season to a 41-point season in the 2013-14 season.

Sislo would get called up in January of 2014, and he played 14 games for the Devils but did not get a point in any of the games he played with the team. The following season, when he returned to Albany, his numbers stayed average, with a 40-point season, and he would get called up in November of 2014. Sislo would play for the Devils in just ten games that season, and he would score a point, with an assist on a Marek Zidlicky goal in his first game that year on November 6, 2014, in a 4-3 loss on the road against the St. Louis Blues. That assist would only be Sislo’s point and was sent back down after December 31, 2014.

Back in Albany, Sislo had his best season ever with a 53-point season and scored 7 points in just nine playoff games with Albany. And was called up in early December. While he didn’t get any points in the first four games he played that season, he would get called up in March, and he finally got to score his best game ever in NJ on St. Patrick’s Day 2015 at home against the Minnesota Wild. In that game, he would score two goals, one early in the game on a backhanded rebound, to put the Devils up 2-0, while the second one, he would score off the post to extend the lead to 6-2 with 7:16 left in the 2nd period.

Sislo would score one more goal, a powerplay goal on March 31, 2016 against the Panthers to put the Devils up 1-0 in a 3-2 loss. After that season ended, Sislo would stay in the AHL, bouncing from team to team with the San Antonio Rampage, Toronto Marlies, Tuscon Roadrunners, and Bridgeport Sound Tigers, averaging 20 points or more during those seasons. While Sislo would play in the DHL with the Grizzlys Wolfsburg in the 2019-20 season, he would officially retire from hockey on January 9, 2020, at 31.