Tanking Season Means It’s Time To See More Devils Prospects
Hard to swallow that there are still 11 more games to go in this wretched 2021-22 Devils season. These affairs couldn’t be more meaningless, with one of the team’s few players you’d pay to see--Jack Hughes--shut down for the remainder with a knee injury.
Watching Thursday’s 7-4 thrashing from Montreal, one of three NHL teams behind them in the overall league standings, at a dead Prudential Center, the Devils (24-41-6) appear to be in full tanking mode.
A,J. Greer and Fabian Zetterlund were each called up from AHL Utica to fill in for some of New Jersey’s walking wounded and acquitted themselves fairly well with four shots on goal apiece, including Greer’s second-period wraparound for his first NHL goal since 2019 while with Colorado.
Unfortunately, with several veterans playing like they’ve checked out (looking at you most, Pavel Zacha) and goaltenders who are comically incapable of stopping the puck, positive developments can get lost in the malaise.
Still, this is what you do when the games no longer matter. So, when New Jersey sets off to face the league’s other two bottom-feeders—Arizona and Seattle--during their upcoming five-game road trip, this might be an opportune moment to see what some of the team’s other prospects have learned during Utica’s dominant season. The Devils won’t be screwing their own ticket-paying customers and the AHL playoffs don’t start until May, so what’s stopping them?
Here then, are three players Devils fans who plan to stay up late to watch these games would rather see than the usual dreck (unfortunately, none are goalies):
Alexander Holtz
With 23 goals in 45 games for the Comets, New Jersey’s first-round pick (No. 7 overall) in the 2020 NHL Draft will be considered one of the favorites for AHL Rookie of the Year. Holtz did not distinguish himself during his seven-game run with the Devils earlier this season and the organization might want to have his entry-level contract slide another year, so in his case, it would have to be just two games and a return to Utica. That’s still fine—any NHL experience can be useful in the learning process and two games shouldn’t be enough to frustrate a player enough to stunt his development. Let him work in on the power play and get him the video so he knows what he has to do to prepare for next season’s training camp. Or would you rather see more Zacha disengagement?
Reilly Walsh
I am so done with the P.K. Subban gaffe show. Walsh, the Devils’ third-round pick in 2017, is deserving of his first NHL shot on New Jersey’s third defensive pair in Subban’s place. He is 10th among all AHL defensemen in points (37) and is playing top-pair minutes for one of the league’s stingiest teams. He will turn 23 this month, so he isn’t a pup, having logged three seasons at Harvard. It will be difficult to find PP time for him with Dougie Hamilton and Damon Severson clearly ahead of him on the right side, but I’m more interested to see how this puck-mover handles himself under the pressure of NHL forechecking. Considering Subban is a pending free agent, promoting Walsh would be useful in the evaluation process for next season.
Nolan Foote
Give Miles Wood a ton of credit for working his tail off to return to action after undergoing hip surgery from a preseason injury. He wants to be a team leader and that’s what they do. However, this one-game-on, two-games-off plan for him makes zero sense given the Devils’ overall situation. If he’s not 100%, why take the risk? Shut it down and bring someone else up. Like Foote, who returned to the Utica ice on Wednesday after missing 10 games with an upper body injury and registered a goal and an assist. Acquired at the 2020 trade deadline in the Blake Coleman trade, Foote hasn’t exactly lived up to his billing as a top-tier power forward prospect. But he can be serviceable as a net-front presence who, unlike injured Devils wing Nathan Bastian (1 assist in 50 games) has some playmaking skills. For Foote, it’s all about whether he can skate well enough to get untangled from like-sized opponents who are adept at erasing him along the walls and in the dirty areas.
Honorable Mention 1—Kevin Bahl
The reason the towering (6-foot 7) Bahl wasn’t included above is because by the time you read this, he may have indeed already been called up in the wake of the injury to lefthanded defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler. Devils coach Lindy Ruff typically doesn’t use the word “concerned” when talking after any game about an injury, but he did on Thursday night when addressing Siegenthaler. Bahl has already suited up seven times for New Jersey this season, including a two-game stint at the end of March. Though he’s still a work-in-progress in terms of understanding how to play in the defensive zone, I’m always in favor of the Devils bringing in defensemen who can move people out of the dangerous areas.
Honorable Mention 2--Tyce Thompson
If not for a shoulder injury that required surgery in his second game with the Devils in November, Thompson probably would have had the opportunity to become a staple among the team’s bottom-six forwards this season (and maybe the Devils don’t claim Bastian off waivers from Seattle after they originally plucked him away from New Jersey in the expansion draft). Though not overly big (6-foot 1), Thompson plays a hard-edged game and has a nose for the net. When cleared to return last week, Thompson was sent to Utica and, in three games, he has lit up the scoreboard with 2 goals and 3 assists. It wouldn’t be shocking to see Thompson back in New Jersey at some point this season, though I wonder if the organization wants to let him get his skating legs under him a little while longer first.