The playoffs are almost upon us, which means its time for some takes.
By now, you know the drill. It’s time for Moore-On or Moron.
Are these takes something where yours truly, a person with good takes, is ahead of the curve hence Moore-On? Or are they they ramblings of a moron?
You can decide in the comments.
The Devils Are Making a Mistake Not Burning the Gritsyuk ELC Now For a Playoff Run
Generally speaking, I hate speaking in definitives when it comes to Arseni Gritsyuk, as I feel there’s probably something going on behind the scenes we don’t know about and there’s probably a reason why he hasn’t officially signed his ELC yet (aside from the whole ‘his contract doesn’t expire until the end of May’ aspect). Maybe it’s visa-related, maybe its some other logistical reason, and maybe its as simple as both parties involved don’t want to burn the year yet. We don’t know.
I will say that I don’t think the situation is as simple as watching other KHL players/NHL prospects like Ivan Demidov and Alexander Nikishin sign with their respective teams though and looking at Tom Fitzgerald as being asleep at the wheel when it comes to why he hasn’t signed his KHL prospect. And I say this as someone who has been very critical of Fitz for being asleep at the wheel and doing a whole lot of nothing.
Could Gritsyuk help the Devils in a playoff run now? Potentially. We don’t know exactly what he’s going to be as an NHL player and we’re at the point of the season where there’s really not a whole lot of runway to give him a test run at this point to see what he is and how he fits into an NHL lineup.
But I do know the Devils have the salary cap to consider moving forward. I do know that once Luke Hughes signs his next contract, they’re not going to have a ton of cap space at their disposal to improve the team unless they get rid of some of the dead weight on the roster. Something that I wrote about a few weeks back.
I have my reservations that Gritsyuk will be the savior that some people seem ready to anoint him. But I do think he has a chance to be good, and I do know he’ll be valuable on that $925,000 salary next season. Likely far more valuable than he would be for a handful of playoff games now.
I don’t know what Gritsyuk’s second NHL contract will look like. We haven’t even gotten him to put pen to paper yet on his first NHL contract yet. But if his camp and Fitzgerald are ultimately ok with waiting until the fall for Gritsyuk to make his Devils debut, I can live with that. I don’t think that’s a mistake on anyone’s part. And had they decided the opposite, to burn the ELC now and worry about the second contract over the summer, so be it. I don’t view these as ‘mistakes’ worth getting hung up over.
We’ve already waited this long for Gritsyuk to come over. What’s another couple months at this point?
Verdict: Moron
The Devils Should Reconsider Whether or Not Dawson Mercer is a Center
One of the more under-discussed topics of conversation in regards to this Devils team recently has been Dawson Mercer taking over as the team’s 2C in the aftermath of the Jack Hughes season ending injury.
Mercer lined up as the team’s 2C in the Dallas game back on March 4th, and putting aside any in-game line blendering by Sheldon Keefe, he has basically played there since.
So how has he done?
The results are a mixed bag at best.
In the 18 games since that Vegas game, he has 4 goals and 3 assists with a -7 rating, with most of that production coming on the power play (3 PPG, 1 PPA). His CF% in that timeframe is 48.85%, his xGF% is 48.19%, and if you’re the type who gets hung up on how important faceoff percentage is, Mercer is at 39.8% in the dot over that span.
If you look at those numbers and your takeaway is, that seems mediocre at best, I would agree with that assessment. But I would also agree that that is what Dawson Mercer has been for the better part of two years now. Mediocre at best.
For a player who recently turned 23 years old and is finishing up his fourth full NHL season, its not great.
That said, the question isn’t about Mercer so much as it is about him being a center, and that’s where things get a little complicated.
Mercer is at 2C right now out of necessity, between the combination of the Jack Hughes injury, Erik Haula’s ineffectiveness, and the team doing little at the deadline to bring in another center.
If we are clearing the comically low bar of “he’s better than Erik Haula right now”, ok? Although for what its worth, Haula has more points in that same span and is at least north of 50% of his draws, so are we sure Mercer is better than Haula at this point?
Either way, it’s still not good. And it’s still not a justification for perhaps leaving Mercer at center permanently going forward.
The bigger issue with Mercer isn’t whether he’s a center or a winger. It’s whether or not he’s a good hockey player or if he’s mid at best. Unfortunately, the answer to that second question appears to be the latter.
Now, it wouldn’t be fair to blame Mercer for being unable to replace Jack Hughes’s offensive production. We knew once Jack went down that that was going to be an issue. But that doesn’t mean Mercer has taken the ball and ran with it either since he got an opportunity to move back to center either. It’s been the opposite.
The Devils are probably better off with him at wing, and if Mercer doesn’t show signs of improvement as he enters his prime years, the Devils might be better off with him playing somewhere else entirely.
Verdict: Moron
These Last Few Games Of The Regular Season Are Cause For Concern Going Into the Playoffs
They, and by they I mean Gerald but people in general, say that you want to be building momentum going into the playoffs.
So how are the Devils doing in that respect? Not great, Bob.
The Devils had a chance to clinch a playoff berth on Tuesday night. Instead, they got destroyed at home against the Boston Bruins. That wound up not mattering as the Devils wound up backdooring their way in with the Rangers loss the following day. But then the Devils followed that stinker up by allowing 4 unanswered goals in a 4-2 loss to the Penguins and getting shut out 1-0 against the Islanders. All at home.
Three games. Three losses on home ice to teams that will be playing golf this weekend. Not good.
Is it a cause for concern though? Not really.
I’m not excusing the Devils losing to the NHL’s also-rans down the stretch. But I also don’t think there’s anything that happened in the last week or so that has seriously changed my outlook on this team and their chances against the Carolina Hurricanes. And I would think the same is true with you.
If you thought the Devils had a chance to beat the Hurricanes before, did anything really happen in the last week happen to change your opinion? The answer is probably not. Conversely, if you thought the Devils were one-and-done bound before, I really doubt anything from this past week changed that opinion either.
81 games into this season, the Devils are what they are at this point. They’re a team that can certainly play well against anyone. They’re also a team that plays down to their opponent and routinely gives away points left and right. It’s part of the reason why I wrote recently why this team is exhausting and how they manage success poorly.
That can all be true, but so can this. Once the playoffs start, none of that matters.
The Devils are 0-0 again starting this weekend. They’re playing a really good hockey team in the Carolina Hurricanes that will also be 0-0. The Devils are going to be underdogs going into the series (+200 according to DraftKings as of this writing) against the favored Hurricanes (-245), and I think those prices are fair all things considered. Carolina has generally been more consistent between the two teams, they have more playoff experience as a group, and they have home ice.
But if the Devils somehow win the series, is anyone going to care how they’ve played this last week? Or how they have generally played since Christmas? The answer to that question is no, because none of that matters anymore. Fans are going to care about whether or not the Devils can somehow keep it going and how far they can take this thing….if they can get past Carolina. If the Devils are still playing in the middle of May, nobody will care how they fared in January.
And if the team loses, weren’t they a flawed team playing without several key players that was supposed to lose anyways?
So at least for me, no, this past week hasn’t really changed my outlook on this Devils team one way or the other going into the playoffs. I don’t think I’ll be picking the Devils against Carolina, as I’m nowhere near as confident as I was with the Rangers series two years ago, but losing to the dregs of the Eastern Conference isn’t going to be the reason why.
Verdict: Moron
The Devils Have No Chance Against Carolina If Their Power Play Isn’t Converting
If there is something from the last few games that would be a cause for concern, it would be the Devils going 0-5 on the PP in those three losses and 2-13 in their last 7 games.
Small sample size aside, the concern is twofold….it’s concerning that the Devils are only generating roughly two power play opportunities a game over that stretch. It’s also concerning that they’re not cashing in on those chances, as the one thing they have been able to rely on all year is an elite level power play.
Carolina has the #1 penalty kill in the league this season, converting at nearly 84%, while the Devils have maintained a strong power play even without Jack Hughes, checking in at 3rd in the league at 27.5%.
If the Devils are going to have any chance of winning a series against the Canes, they have to be on the winning side of that strength-on-strength matchup.
The good news for the Devils is that Carolina has lost in the playoffs before losing that matchup. They did so one year ago against the Rangers. Carolina’s PK was #1 last year too at 86.4% while the Rangers were third in the league at 26.4%.
What turned out to be the difference in that series? Special teams.
The Rangers scored 4 power play goals in the first two games of that series. Both of those games were Rangers wins and put Carolina in an 0-2 hole. Carolina might’ve outplayed the Rangers at 5v5, but when your power play converts that frequently early, it puts the other team in a bind and forces them to play catchup. The margin of error shrinks. All of a sudden, you drop a must win Game 3 at home in overtime like Carolina did and it doesn’t really matter how well the charts say you did at 5v5. The series is effectively over.
If the Devils want any chance of beating the Canes, they need to take a play out of the Rangers playbook and win the special teams battle. Why? They’re probably not winning the 5v5 battle, as Carolina was #1 in xGF% at 5v5 this year and the Devils have struggled to generate offense at 5v5 outside of their top guys.
Verdict: Moore-On
It Doesn’t Matter That The Devils Made The Playoffs, They Will Be One-and-Done Anyways
The Devils very well might be a one-and-done playoff team. The body of work they’ve put together over the last few months would suggest this team isn’t a serious contender to go deep, and its not like the GM did them any favors when he left millions of dollars of LTIR unspent at the deadline several months ago.
That said, I can’t get on board with the notion that it doesn’t matter whether or not the Devils made the playoffs in the first place only to lose in relatively quick fashion. It does matter.
It matters to Tom Fitzgerald, as making the playoffs may very well be the reason why he still has his job as general manager of this team. Because we could certainly argue with another year of no playoffs that the Devils would be justified had they decided to move on.
It matters to Sheldon Keefe, who is ultimately judged on wins and losses and is back in the playoffs yet again.
It matters to ownership, who certainly would prefer to have revenue from home playoff dates than not have them. They are running a business, after all. And while I’m not in the business of watching a billionaire’s pockets, I’m old enough to know that rich people are not happy when money is being taken out of said pockets.
And it matters to the players. The team didn’t make the investments that they made in their top players to not play playoff games. They didn’t sign Dougie Hamilton or Ondrej Palat or Brett Pesce or Brenden Dillon or Stefan Noesen as free agents under the premise that this team was going to be done after 82 games. They didn’t trade for Jacob Markstrom or Jake Allen because they were content to plan their offseason golf routine in the middle of April. They didn’t do all of that to support the core guys already in place because they thought good enough was good enough.
Like I said, its very well possible the Devils aren’t good enough to get past Carolina, never mind the rest of the Eastern Conference. And while its also not my place to tell people how to be fans, if you want to approach this as “only winning the Cup matters” and anything else isn’t good enough, I can respect that. Even though that’s a very cynical way of being a sports fan in general and you’re going to be a miserable person watching your teams having that be the measuring stick for success each and every year. If that’s how you want to root for the team, you do you.
I fail to see how playing playoff games is a bad thing though. The Devils need to experience first hand what it takes to get to where they want to go, and the only way to do that is to play in this type of environment. They got a taste of that two years ago when Carolina beat them in five games. It probably needs to be reinforced that winning is hard and you need to work harder than the other guy in order to be successful. The Devils have approached the last two seasons like this is easy and they can just flip a switch at any point for the “big games”. Maybe they can. I have my doubts. Regardless, that remains to be seen. But getting beat by the team that ended their season two years ago yet again might also be the wakeup call this team needs moving forward.
Verdict: Moron
(Note: This article was written prior to the 4/15/25 game @ Boston)