If the New Jersey Devils want to make a serious push for a championship with their current core, they need some of the younger players to become important pieces, starting as soon as this season.
Most of the important business of the summer has already been taken care of for the New Jersey Devils. The Bottom Six forwards have been somewhat revamped, Jake Allen was re-signed to bolster goaltending and only a contract for Luke Hughes seems to remain. While the team hopes for better results with better depth, there are always other ways to improve on fortunes from a prior season. One such avenue for the Devils would be adding some of their younger players develop into important pieces.
Now maybe that statement is a bit confusing; after all it’s true that the Devils core itself is still relatively young. Jack Hughes is just 24, Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt both 26 and if you want to include Timo Meier, he’s 28. Luke at only 21 is the team’s lone core defender, at least for now. In sports, however, as teams start to age, their contention windows are viewed as shrinking. I wouldn’t say the Devils need to worry about that yet, but at the same time the current core has only gotten to the second round of the playoffs.
Which brings us back to the developing young players bit. While the offseason restructuring hopefully puts players in their proper depth positions (as I spoke about last week when I predicted the team’s lineup) having some young guys on cheaper contracts produce beyond their cap hit would help. In that regard, there’s five players the Devils need to see start to make a splash.
Up front, there could be at least one spot that Arseny Gritsyuk and Lenni Hameenaho should contend for. Gritsyuk seems to have the edge due to his development path and roughly for years of KHL play. What can’t be forgotten is that Hameenaho has spent his past three seasons developing in Finland’s Liiga playing against older competition, and he was almost a point per game this season. Both of these young men could wind up being important Devils should they continue to develop on North American ice. As he’s already technically in a contract year, however, not only do I think Gritsyuk has a bit of an edge, but he might also put up points as others do in a contract year. More scoring can’t hurt and as long as either or both plays well in all three zones, the Devils could start seeing value from both of these guys as soon as this season.
Speaking of defense, I think we all know what names are coming next. This is the year for either Simon Nemec, or Seamus Casey or both of them to make an impact. Both young men are still works in progress, yet we need to remember they, like Luke, are both only 21. Defenders can take time to come into their own, though in Nemec’s case, we’ve certainly seen flashes of greatness in his rookie season and last year’s playoffs. Casey meanwhile has shown he has some real offensive talent and capability. The Devils need both of them to come into their own for different reasons that could help the team to find sustained success. If at least one of them can become a full time effective NHL player this season, it gives the Devils that much more depth.
Now goaltending is the area where the least impact should be seen due to the two veterans on the roster. However, Markstrom and Allen aren’t getting any younger; someone will have to succeed them and hopefully the option is internal. There’s definitely a few prospects in the Devils system who could eventually take the reigns, but I think it is Mikhail Yegorov who could make the largest impact and the soonest. Again, this is the one area I expect to see little to no NHL impact this season, but another good year of development from Yegorov could put him on the far track to being a big piece for the Devils’ future.
The core of the New Jersey Devils should still be the team’s main attraction and what drives them forward. Getting a few other youngsters to start developing further and adding their contributions to the team would go a long way in helping to push this team beyond the second round of the playoffs. What are your thoughts on getting contributions from players just starting their career; do you think any of these names will be big pieces this season? Is it too much to expect big contributions from players so young? Are there any other names in the system who haven’t been regular NHL players to this point that you think could add to the current Devils roster? Leave any and all thoughts below and thanks as always for reading!