The Devils needed Brett Pesce to return to the lineup on Wednesday like most life on Earth needs oxygen to breathe.
Just from the first sights of him in the photos of the team in practice, you can see his infectious smile and positive attitude. When I saw him next to Luke Hughes, I actually had hope again that a positive change was coming. The New Jersey Devils have clearly had a rough month. It’s been visible in their on-ice play, their expressions on the bench, and also audible in their responses to the media. The players and the coaches alike have seemed like they have shared the dark cloud hanging overhead. But something seemed to immediately shift when Brett Pesce rejoined the team at practice.
Is the team a failure for having a rough month? No. It was certainly frustrating to watch, and the team needs to continue considering changes to improve the team, but it’s not hard to understand why a team that has dealt with injury after injury before having the lingering question of who may be moved so the team can get Quinn Hughes festering in the locker room may have had some abnormal struggles for the kinds of players they are. Some have been snakebitten, offensively. Some have been lost, defensively. Some have been both. But now, trades are nothing but the loosest of rumors, and better times seem to be ahead on the injury front.
On Wednesday night, the Devils played like a much better team with Pesce back on the ice. They had the better of possession and expected goals numbers at even strength, only going to overtime because of a missed coverage on the penalty kill after a clearing attempt from Pesce by the wall was deflected back towards the middle. Had the other three Devils not been cheating towards the puck too much, Allen probably would have had a shutout. But it is what it is — Jake Allen still held it down long enough for Bratt to win the game in a shootout, and the Devils still got two points.
Beyond the numbers, the team skated with better legs than they have been for the past few weeks. When Sheldon Keefe praised Pesce after Wednesday night’s win, he said that Pesce is probably their “loudest guy on the bench.” I do not take this to mean that Brett Pesce is going to get in someone’s face and confront them over mistakes and whatnot, but it does seem like he is going to give a lot of vocal encouragement and pick-ups to the rest of the team. He’s a positive guy. What’s more is, with the Devils’ younger defensemen, Brett Pesce is such a good teammate to look up to because of, as Keefe mentioned in the same interview, his high-quality reads and plays that inject energy into the rest of the team.
Some people think that a good defensive defenseman is one who can sit back and just crunch people at the blueline, or make frequent desperate plays in the defensive zone. Brett Pesce does not get things done like that very often, from what I see. I see a defenseman that doesn’t even want to let the puck get to the blueline: he doesn’t even want to cede the center ice red line. But with speed and good angles, Pesce gets right up on the play and knocks the puck back towards the offensive zone and does his best to maintain offensive zone possession. Aside from Dougie Hamilton, Brett Pesce is the next-best Devils defenseman at keeping the puck in the offensive zone (but we trust Pesce to make more defensive plays in the next 100 or so feet of the ice if doing so fails).
But a lingering question in my mind is: how much can the Devils rely on the return of their injured players to turn this season around? It sounds like Jack Hughes is not far off, which would just leave the following players on injured reserve after his return (not including Timo Meier, who is non-roster for personal reasons, or Arseny Gritsyuk, who is expected back soon):
- Simon Nemec
- Johnny Kovacevic
- Evgenii Dadonov
- Zack MacEwen
- Marc McLaughlin
Do not get me wrong: these five players probably have quite a bit to offer the Devils in their current state. I have loved watching Colton White on the back-end, but Kovacevic will probably help change the game for a guy like Jonas Siegenthaler, who has struggled this season. Or Nemec can help inject more offense into the blueline. Dadonov can help bring more of a finishing touch to the third line. MacEwen brings high energy to the fourth as long as he stays healthy. And McLaughlin could have a path to playing fourth line center in certain stretches if the team feels like Luke Glendening isn’t playing to an everyday level.
But here’s the other end of it: the team can’t just say, okay, we’re healthy now and flip an injury switch to OFF like they’re in a video game. More players will get banged up in the second half, and they may even be the same players who have already been out, or they may not. And to incorporate all of these players, some other guys may have to be waived or traded.
Thankfully, with Brett Pesce back, it really seems like the defense has the depth to do well again. I just do not think that Tom Fitzgerald should go to the media in a month or three and say, well, we really like getting our guys back, which is really like a deadline acquisition for us because they haven’t been out there or some similar string of words. The reality is that the team was sinking without Hughes and Pesce. But should the team be so reliant on two guys when they have many other high-paid players? Where is the AHL and organizational depth that can be inserted and keep the train chugging along, as we see in other teams like Carolina? Things are not dire, but they are still a bit questionable.
For now, though, I am very happy that Brett Pesce is back, and I hope that his attitude and energy continues to rub off on the rest of the team. Let’s see them get another win tonight.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of the Devils’ current situation? Do you think things will reliably turn around when more players return from injured reserve? Or are the Devils betting too much on improved health in the second half of the season? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and thanks for reading.