With rumors again placing Dawson Mercer in the air of mysterious trade speculation, Tom Fitzgerald needs to ensure that he does not make an unforced error.
In general, most teams would be thrilled to have a former mid-first round pick already have 83 goals and 167 points in the NHL before the time they turn 24 years old. However, Dawson Mercer repeatedly finds himself at the forefront of New Jersey Devils trade speculation, and this has picked up yet again this offseason. Nick Kyrpreos at Sportsnet, however, listed Dawson Mercer and Ondrej Palat as “underperforming” players that may be traded this offseason. Noting Fitzgerald’s call for better scoring and better performances, Mercer’s 19-goal season (which ranked sixth on the team) was apparently not good enough. Kyrpreos writes,
An underwhelming season for a different reason than Palat, Dawson Mercer is now two years removed from a 27-goal, 56-point campaign and failed to hit the 20-goal plateau in 2024-25. He just hasn’t been able to build on the offensive promise he showed in 2022-23, though he did still play a role on both special teams units. Making $4 million against the cap for another two seasons, Mercer will turn just 24 years old early next NHL season and there is always a market for teams looking for young NHL contributors with upside.
I find it ridiculous that Mercer is dinged for failing to hit the 20-goal plateau, without any context offered. It’s not like he fell apart and scored 10 goals. The end of that article from Kyrpreos gives the game away too: Mercer is one of the Devils’ only working middle-tier contracts. Let us compare the seasons that Devils middle six players had, with their contracts:
- Ondrej Palat: $6Mx2 remaining; 15 goals, 13 assists in 2024-25 ($315,789 per primary point)
- Dawson Mercer: $4Mx2 remaining: 19 goals, 17 assists in 2024-25 ($129,032 per primary point)
- Erik Haula: $3.15Mx1 remaining: 11 goals, 10 assists in 2024-25 ($185,294 per primary point)
- Stefan Noesen: $2.75Mx2 remaining: 22 goals, 19 assists in 2024-25 ($74,324 per primary point[!!!])
Everyone would love it if their team’s players provided as much on-ice value per dollar paid as Stefan Noesen, but he will be an outlier in the league if he keeps that production up. To me, it would seem like best practice to try to improve on the players obviously underperforming their contracts in Palat and Haula, if creating cap space is the idea. They are older, both born within a week of each other in March 1991, while Mercer is literally a decade younger. I would love to see Palat and Haula turn it around, but at their age, it is not historically likely. Not a lot of players rekindle their old levels of production at 34 years old. Though, to be fair to Haula, he did not get nearly as much secondary assist luck as Palat. Haula had seven primary assists to Palat’s four, while Palat had nine secondary assists to Haula’s three. With eight fewer games played, his season was truly much more palatable than Palat’s. I just don’t expect 40 points from him again.
23 year olds, however, tend to have several good years ahead of them, but their development paths vary. At 23, Haula had 29 points in 118 career games. Ondrej Palat had just set a career-high in points at 63. Palat would never again reach his point totals set at 22 (59) or 23 years old, though he leveled out in the 40-55 point range until he became a Devil. Haula became a middle six center a couple years later when Minnesota let Vegas select him in the expansion draft. What will Dawson Mercer’s next years look like? At 23 years old, he already has as many 20-goal seasons (2) as Palat and Haula combined, and he was just one goal away from getting past them.
Then consider that Dawson Mercer was very effective in his secondary power play minutes, played okay on the penalty kill, and can handle the responsibilities of a center. Despite low even strength production, his defense was strong enough that the team did not get outscored in his even strength minutes. Would I love to see Mercer gain 10 pounds and start adding a little more grit to his game? Sure, but the Devils have the outline of a great supporting player already. He works extremely well as a winger for Hischier and Meier (Devils outscored opponents 8-4 in 252 minutes). He worked even better as a center for Haula and Meier (4-0 in 98 minutes). If you take the 267 minutes he played with Paul Cotter (9-14, an issue with Cotter playing up the lineup I detailed some time ago), Mercer had very good (30-21) even five-on-five on-ice results.
Ultimately, if you are looking at the three “obvious” cap-creating moves the Devils can make on the forward side by trading Palat, Mercer, and/or Haula, trading Mercer would do the least to solve the team underperformance issue. He provides the best production value to the dollar value of his contract, he is capable of playing the most minutes, and he is the youngest and most durable of the those players. This is not a case of trading a struggling former draft pick for whatever can be had, like Alex Holtz.
A trade cannot be judged before it happens, though. Maybe Tom Fitzgerald happens to eventually trade Mercer in a fair deal that works for all involved parties. However, with Mercer’s rather average cap hit, I just do not see the appeal of shopping him. This is not the time for Fitzgerald to break with his mantra of patience, with a 23-year old under team control, who has positive chemistry and apparently good relationships with all of the team’s most important players.
Your Thoughts
What did you think of the increased trade speculation during the Draft Combine, which ended yesterday? Do you think this year’s NHL Draft will be less active with the trade market? Do you think Mercer will bounce back next season? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.