Devils’ New Internal Competition Pays Immediate Dividend
For all the flack given to Devils General Manager Tom Fitzgerald by the media (and ranting pontificators like me) for his underwhelming performance at Friday’s Trade Deadline, one of his theories has already been proven.
By acquiring bottom-six forwards Cody Glass and Daniel Sprong plus defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Dennis Cholowski for future assets, New Jersey created internal competition for lineup spots. The league’s 23-man roster limit disappears after the deadline; for Sunday afternoon’s contest at Philadelphia, the Devils listed 27 players on its website, though Jack Hughes and Jonas Siegenthaler are on long-term injured reserve and Dougie Hamilton is out for “an extended period”, per the team.
The extra bodies allowed Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe to exercise some tough love on certain players who have not met expectations, whereas before his extra forward options were limited to useless Justin Dowling and unplayable goon Kurtis MacDermid. Hard for a coach to make a point when the replacement is sending a worse message on the ice.
Glass and Sprong stepped in for Paul Cotter and Dowling on a reconfigured third line on Sunday and Cholowski, who replaced struggling sophomore defenseman Simon Nemec, gave the Devils a mostly (except for one play where he was undressed on a rush) solid 13:09 while primarily paired with Brenden Dillon, helping New Jersey hold on for a crucial 3-1 victory.
The win halted a three-game losing streak that had tightened the noose around the Devils’ proverbial neck. As of this writing (before Sunday’s conclusion of the Rangers/Blue Jackets game), New Jersey remains a mere 6 points ahead of New York for the final Wild Card seed with the Rangers holding two games in hand.
The Devils’ collapse since the Holidays plus Hughes’ demoralizing injury made many wonder why Fitzgerald threw good assets (a 2025 second round pick, a 2027 third rounder, and a 2026 seventh rounder) after bad on Friday for players who weren’t expected to move the needle. New Jersey was struggling to score goals; Glass and Dumoulin had been unproductive offensively this season while Sprong and Cholowski had been toiling in the minors.
Ah, but the competition, at least for one game, seemed to wake up some of the Devils’ lagging players. Like Erik Haula, who had gone 29 games without a point before registering a goal and an assist after moving out to the flank with Glass and Sprong.
Glass opened the scoring midway through the first period with a snipe from the right circle off a broken play. Welcome to the Devils. About five minutes into the second period, he was lurking around the slot as a scramble forced a point shot rebound to slither to Haula for an easy finish that gave New Jersey a 2-0 lead. Haula’s faceoff tie-up at center ice with 20 seconds remaining trickled to Dawson Mercer, who sent the puck into an empty net to close the scoring.
The new trio was only on the ice for 8:15 together at five-on-five, but they owned a 93% expected goals for share, per NaturalStatTrick.com. That’s quite a turnaround from when Haula was centering the third line with Cotter and either Mercer or Stefan Noesen on the right. In either case, the Devils were operating with sub-50% advanced NST metrics over those five-on-five shifts.
Though they didn’t affect the scoresheet, New Jersey’s fourth line also seemed to turn their battle level up a notch. Curtis Lazar and Nathan Bastian banged every Flyer they could, helping the team forecheck hem Philly in its own zone for lengthy periods.
Obviously, this is just one game, and the Flyers aren’t exactly the Winnipeg Jets when it comes to skill and discipline. Like Glass, Cotter too ingratiated himself with his new teammates by scoring a goal in each of the two games of the NHL Global Series against Buffalo that opened the season. Five months later, he’s watching a game from the press box because he has one point in his last 10 games. Since he also hasn’t been doing his part in other areas, according to Keefe, and takes too many dumb penalties, he became the competition’s first loser. When it’s Cotter’s turn to draw back in, though, I’d expect him to have an extra gear in his stride.
And just in time for the playoff push, continuing with Tuesday’s showdown against Columbus at The Rock. If this—lighting a fire in his depth players to push them to actually contribute in the games--was Fitzgerald’s plan all along, it’s one that I hadn’t considered.