Devils’ Preseason Is About A Race For The (Roster) Bottom
While it’s easy for Devils fans to get excited about the team’s prospects following back-to-back victories to open their seven-game preseason slate, even most of the diehards understand that these games are nothing more than split-squad affairs where the top veterans are simply working on getting their sea legs. Preseason results do not necessarily carry over into the regular season.
For the Devils’ younger players and those on PTOs battling to earn a spot on the 23-man NHL roster, however, these exhibitions are everything. Head Coach Lindy Ruff will have to use these contests and all the information at his disposal to parse the differences between a host of guys who could ably fit as bottom-six forwards or extra defensemen.
Ruff has the added wrinkle of accounting for certain players’ rights to not be sent down to AHL Utica without needing to pass through waivers first. Barring a trade (or, heaven forbid, a long-term injury-- let’s all pray that captain Nico Hischier’s exit in the preseason opener in Montreal really was nothing more than cramps) where General Manager Tom Fitzgerald offloads an extra forward or two for future considerations, the Devils will have a high risk of losing a player in whom they have invested considerably during these lean years due to headcount.
It’s still early in the process, but here’s where I think things stand:
Goalies:
Locks: Mackenzie Blackwood, Vitek Vanecek
LTIR: Jonathan Bernier
No intrigue here—yet. Bernier participated in one of New Jersey’s intrasquad scrimmages but doesn’t seem all that close to being fully recovered from the right hip surgery that derailed his 2021-22 season.
Defensemen:
Locks: Dougie Hamilton, Damon Severson, John Marino, Jonas Siegenthaler, Adam Graves, Brendan Smith
Extra: Kevin Bahl
Utica bound: Simon Nemec, Reilly Walsh, Nikita Okhotiuk., Thomas Hickey
Most analysts believe the Devils will reserve the extra slot for a lefthanded d-man, which should be the towering Bahl based on merit, since the lefty Smith, 33, is most likely among the six to need nights off. The team is often loathe to keep younger players like Bahl in their press box when they could be continuing their development in the minors, so there’s an outside chance that former Islander Hickey, who’s on a PTO, gets the nod as the placeholder. Ruff has already laid the groundwork for Nemec, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, to start the season spending some time learning the North American game at a lower level while Walsh, a 2017 third-round pick, has been a major disappointment in my view, routinely getting beat during the Prospects Challenge in Buffalo and in the preseason opener in Montreal. He just might be the quintessential AAAA player.
Forwards:
Here’s where it gets really complicated. The top eight is set: Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Dawson Mercer, Jesper Bratt, Ondrej Palat, Yegor Sharangovich, Miles Wood, and Erik Haula.
Ruff really, really wants to see 2020 No. 7 overall pick Alexander Holtz break into that group, giving him ice time on the top scoring line with Hughes and Palat at practices and in the Devils’ 4-1 victory over the visiting Islanders on Tuesday night. So far, Holtz has not looked out of place—unlike during his 9-game audition last season—and made the type of heavy and heady play behind the net before feeding Hughes for New Jersey’s third tally that will further pique Ruff’s interest.
Now, assuming Holtz sticks, how do you configure the Devils’ fourth line plus the two extra forwards? Top prospects Tyce Thompson and Nolan Foote are waiver exempt, as is Brian Halonen, an intriguing undrafted free agent who has stood out to me in the early going. All three should be ticketed for Utica before the Devils’ regular season opener on October 13 at Philadelphia. Big-bodied Mason Geertsen’s demotion would require waivers and he’s the type of player the organization wouldn’t mind gathering rust from a slew of healthy scratches until a particularly heavy team appears on the schedule, but there’s just no room for a non-skilled player to stick around this team.
So, the chalk take for who makes it would be for New Jersey to stick with the Mississauga boys selected in the first two rounds of the 2016 Draft, Michael McLeod and Nathan Bastian, skilled 2017 second-rounder Jesper Boqvist, and veterans Tomas Tatar and Andreas Johnsson. However, it would be a travesty if Fabian Zetterlund, who embodies Ruff’s “hard-to-play against” mantra (he laid out to block a slap shot from the hot stick of Islander defenseman Ryan Pulock) and has the speed and skill to contribute offensively, was the odd man out—since he isn’t waivers exempt, some team with their eyes open would surely claim him.
It's not an easy call, but if it were mine, I just don’t see how McLeod’s faceoff prowess (7th-best in the league last season among centers who took at least 500 draws at 57.3%) and Draft pedigree should get him a free pass. All those extra possessions gained from faceoff wins certainly hasn’t helped drive much Devils offense—McLeod has registered a measly 15 goals and 25 assists in 162 career NHL games and his advanced metrics are just as lousy. The trade for Haula, a nearly 54% faceoff winner last season (26th best) and a decent penalty killer, would help offset the few positives McLeod brought to the rink every night.
My gut tells me that the Devils will go in a different direction. Since that decision won’t have to be made for another two weeks, let the preseason game roster battles continue.