
Will Dawson Mercer begin the season as the third line center? I’m starting to have my doubts.
The draft is over, free agency frenzy is behind us, and the New Jersey Devils mostly have their roster set for the 2025-26 season. It’s possible they make some other moves like trading Ondrej Palat or Dougie Hamilton, but aside from getting Luke Hughes’ name on a contract, there really aren’t many moves left to make.
So now that the pieces are gathered, the next question becomes, how do those pieces fit together? Gerard took a crack at that very question last week. Meanwhile, Jared gave us an overview of what Tom Fitzgerald and Devils management seem to think of the roster they’ve assembled after their free agency signings.
One of the most important decisions along these lines is figuring out the best option to slot in behind Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier on the center depth chart. The best teams are generally strong down the middle after all, so having star power up top and impressive depth further down the lineup is borderline mandatory if a team wants to compete for a championship. And when it comes to the all-important third line center question, Gerard, Jared, and a lot of the People Who Matter seem to agree:
The job is Dawson Mercer’s to lose.
Given the current state of the team, it’s not hard to see why this would be the consensus. After Fitzgerald decided not to address the position in free agency, the only players on the roster that have a credible shot at the 3C role are Mercer and the recently extended Cody Glass. Paul Cotter, Juho Lammikko, Shance Lachance, and the newly acquired Thomas Bordeleau (who still needs a new contract at the time of this writing) are the only other players who have even an outside chance at third line pivot duties. I really don’t see any of them challenging Mercer or Glass for the job though.
And while Glass looked promising after coming over at the trade deadline, he’s been a career fourth line center up to this point. Mercer, on the other hand, has been a fixture in the Devils’ top six since the day he got called up to the big leagues. Granted, most of this time has been spent on the wing, but either way, Mercer has spent very little time in a fourth line role in his career thus far. So it makes sense that Mercer would have the inside track to the 3C gig.
…and yet…
I’ll be honest, the original plan for this piece was to analyze just how ready Mercer is for the 3C job. I very much agreed with Gerard, Jared, and Devils fans everywhere who assumed Mercer was the logical choice for the role, so I wanted to see what we could expect from Mercer once the season starts.
But the more I looked into it, the less certain I became that Mercer really will be deployed as the third line center.
So what exactly is making me doubt that? Well let’s start with the simple fact that Mercer has largely been used as a winger in his young career. It’s true that he was drafted as a center, but since his debut at the start of the 2021-22 season, Mercer has spent a ton of time on the wing next to either Hischier, Hughes, Erik Haula, or various other centers. Mercer has gotten opportunities down the middle, but these opportunities haven’t exactly gone according to plan. John wrote about this back in January of 2024, concluding that Mercer was noticeably more effective on the wing than at center. And while we have about a season-and-a-half of new data since John wrote that, the numbers still largely show Mercer is more effective as a winger.
Speaking of his effectiveness as a winger, we all know Mercer had a phenomenal breakout season in 2022-23 playing mostly with Hischier and Tomas Tatar. In about 260 minutes at 5-on-5 together, that trio obliterated opponents to the tune of a 59.51% Expected Goals For%, and a 64.29% Actual Goals For%. They controlled puck possession and the scoreboard in dominating fashion. Individually, Mercer posted 27 goals and 56 points that year; very promising numbers for a sophomore campaign. And while he hasn’t been able to reach those heights in the two seasons since, Mercer has proven he can be a great complimentary piece riding shotgun in a top six role with Hischier.
He’s also proven this with Hughes as well. While Hughes does perform better without Mercer on his wing, the numbers for both of them together since the start of 2023-24 are still quite strong. Especially so this past season, when Hughes and Mercer posted a terrific 65.77% xGF% together. Yes the sample was small with just a shade under 70 minutes at 5-on-5 together, but as mentioned, they do have a longer track record of success when sharing the ice.
Then there’s Sheldon Keefe’s usage of Mercer this past season, which to me is the biggest reason why I’ve become skeptical that Mercer will get the 3C job. Going back through Mercer’s game logs at Natural Stat Trick, he began the season reunited with Hischier and Tatar for a stretch, then Meier replaced Tatar on the line for a while (Meier is the skater Mercer shared the most 5-on-5 ice time with this past season). After a run with Hischier and Meier, he played a lot of games on Haula’s wing, then spent much of December bouncing around the Hischier, Haula, and Hughes lines. There were a handful of games where Mercer got some run at center, but the vast majority of his first half was spent on the wing. Which isn’t surprising considering the Devils’ personnel at the time.
But there was something else that did surprise me a little bit, something I completely memory-holed. When Haula missed exactly a month from January 4th to February 4th, Mercer did shift to the third line at first…but not to play center. Instead he was on the wing while Justin Dowling skated down the middle. I could have sworn Mercer was moved to third line center when Haula went down, but I was wrong, that role went to Dowling instead.
After a couple weeks there, he moved back up to play with Hischier for a bit. Mercer finally got some time at center in the January 18th game against Philadelphia, slotting between Cotter and Brian Halonen. This didn’t last long though, as he was right back on Dowling’s wing during the next game. He stayed there until late January, when Hischier was injured in the January 25th contest in Montreal. In the three games the Devils played between Hischier’s injury and Haula’s return to the lineup, Keefe had no choice but to have Mercer center a line between Meier and Stefan Noesen.
When Haula returned, Mercer went right back to Haula’s wing until the Four Nations tournament. Once the Devils were back in action following that break, he played wing for Hischier, Haula, and Dowling until Hughes’ season ending injury on March 2nd finally forced him to mostly play center the rest of the way.
But while Mercer spent the vast majority of his time down the middle post-Hughes injury, he started to lose some playing time to the then-freshly acquired Glass. Glass’ first game with New Jersey was March 9th, and he played eight games from then until the March 24th game against Vancouver, which was Glass’ last one before missing some time due to injury. In those eight contests, Mercer got more 5-on-5 ice time than Glass in the first two of those games, then only 12 seconds more in the third, and in the final five games they played together before Glass’ injury, Mercer got less 5-on-5 ice time than Glass in all but one of them. It’s true that once Glass returned on April 5th, Mercer got more 5-on-5 time in every game the rest of the way. But this seems more about Glass’ injury maintenance than Mercer earning more ice time, as Glass went from averaging a little over 15 minutes per game to a little over 13 minutes per game.
So in the end, when you consider Mercer spending the bulk of his career on the wing, his past success with Hischier and Hughes, his struggles down the middle, the Devils’ need for another top six winger, and most importantly to me, Keefe’s utter refusal to play Mercer at center until he had no choice, I think Mercer is far less likely to start the season as the third line center than we all think. If Keefe was trusting Justin Dowling to center a line more than Mercer, that’s a pretty big indicator that Keefe does not trust Mercer down the middle.
As mentioned, given the roster construction, it seems hard to believe the Devils would keep Mercer on the wing. Yes they do need another top six winger, and Mercer has had success with Hughes and Hischier, but is Mercer truly the answer there? Plus this would mean Glass begins the season as the 3C, and while he wouldn’t be totally out of his depth in that role, he’s probably better suited on a fourth line. So if Mercer is in the top six and Glass is the third line center, then who would play down the middle on the fourth line? Well probably one of the names I mentioned above: Cotter, Lammikko, Lachance, or Bordeleau. Unless the Devils make a surprise trade for another center, that is.
I’m not even arguing that this would be the best way to deploy the lineup, for the record I think Gerard’s choices from last week were fine. I’m just pointing out that we might be getting ahead of ourselves here in assuming Mercer is a lock to center the third line.
So how would the lineup shake out with Mercer on the wing and Glass as the third line center? Perhaps something like this:
Jesper Bratt – Jack Hughes – Dawson Mercer
Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Connor Brown
Evgenii Dadonov – Cody Glass – Arseni Gritsyuk
Ondrej Palat – Thomas Bordeleau – Stefan Noesen
Scratches: Paul Cotter, Kurtis MacDermid
Mercer gets stapled to a couple play drivers in Hughes and Bratt. Brown has experience playing up the lineup in a complimentary role from his time in Edmonton, so the coaching staff might think he would be a good fit on Hischier’s wing. On the third line, perhaps Keefe tries to see if countrymen Dadonov and Gritsyuk can find some chemistry together and provide playmaking and scoring punch while Glass serves as the transition driver and defensive conscience of the line. And on the fourth line, I plugged Bordeleau in there because I’m intrigued by his skillset and upside, but really he’s interchangeable with any of the contenders I listed for the 4C role.
Again, I’m not necessarily saying this is the way I’d do it. But considering how Keefe deployed Mercer last season, I get the feeling he really does not want to play him at center, so the lineup above might be closer to what we get instead. I also think it’s reasonable to believe that Fitzgerald is on the same page as Keefe, considering he acquired a couple players who can fill a depth center role in Lammikko and Bordeleau this offseason. Maybe he looked at the Florida Panthers winning a second title with a bargain bin fourth line and thought he could replicate that.
Who knows, maybe Mercer is the third line center after all and I just wrote a bunch of words for no reason. Maybe the simplest answer to the 3C question – filling the role with Mercer – really is the one the Devils go with.
Or maybe Keefe’s seeming preference for Glass over Mercer should be taken a little more seriously. And maybe Fitzgerald pivoting to qualifying Glass in the run up to free agency, ultimately extending him, and making moves to acquire depth center options like Lammikko and Bordeleau are indications that Glass is the 3C and Lammikko and pals will battle it out for the 4C position while Mercer remains on the wing. We’ll have to wait a while until we get answers, but it’ll be very interesting to see how this all unfolds.