To save the 2024-25 season, the New Jersey Devils need to make some adjustments. Subtracting some underperforming players, be it by trade or waivers, could help spark some life in this team.
The New Jersey Devils have a forward problem. Maybe it’s stating the obvious at this point, but the team has a glut of underachieving players that have been regulars all season. This article was originally intended to question if the production of the depth forwards or the defenders has been more disputing this season, but this week’s games kind of swayed the answer. Besides, at least the defenders are defending.
Now before going further, I’m going to take two names off the “get them off this team” list. The first is Timo Meier who has absolutely underachieved for how much he’s paid. Timo isn’t going anywhere with his contract and as the team’s fourth highest scoring player, there’s worse offenders here. I’m also going to give Dawson Mercer a pass in this article. Maybe I shouldn’t, but when he has more points than Ondrej Palat without being spoonfed unlimited minutes with Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt, again I find it hard to say he should be off the roster. Now let’s get to the players who should find themselves out of here, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Maybe the Devils roster was mostly static (aside from injuries) in order to maximize trade deadline cap space. If that’s the case, after Friday, there’s no reason why Nate Bastian should still be on this team. I can’t think of anything he brings consistently other than turnovers. Maybe he’s a good guy, but he’s not producing, he’s not adding physicality and other teams have an easy time whenever he’s on the ice. Ditto for Justin Dowling. He’s been an okay injury fill in, but that’s all he is at the NHL level. Waive him post deadline and send him back to Utica. Bastian and Dowling are both UFAs at season’s end, but if the Devils are serious about being competitors going forward, (and if Tom Fitzgerald is serious about keeping his job) they need to start fixing the mistakes now.
Curtis Lazar, while useful in the past, is having just a downright awful season. As another upcoming UFA and someone who plays like he cares, I’m on the cusp with whether he should stay or not. If he does stay for the rest of this season, he should be the nightly healthy scratch at this point. And speaking of nightly healthy scratches, end the Kurtis MacDermid experiment. It was an almost universally panned signing when it happened, and since that time he done nothing to change that narrative. The amount of minutes he plays per game deters nothing. The Devils have some tough players that can actually play hockey, such as Brenden Dillon. Fitz can go add more players like Dillon if he wants grit; having guys who average low single digit minutes of ice time while doing nothing to help the team produce is just asinine.
The Devils also have two more underachievers to try and move on from. The shared issue is both have contract clauses that makes them difficult to ship out right now. Erik Haula has had his moments in Devils red and black, but like Lazar he’s had a bad season. If there’s any way he agrees to a trade at the deadline, I say go for it. He’s not scoring and he’s been surpassed as a penalty killer by a number of forwards. Haula is in the latter stages of his career and his diminished role under Sheldon Keefe could see the team try to find him a different situation. The other player, of course, is the target of the ire of myself and many others: Ondrej Palat. Now this isn’t going to turn into a Palat bashing, or repeating the same talking points about his performance. All I’ll reiterate is what I alluded to earlier when discussing Mercer. For playing with Hughes and Bratt, the two highest scoring Devils, who have a combined 96 assists at the time of writing, to only have 13 goals is a level of bad that I don’t have the words to describe. We all knew he was overpaid the moment he was signed, but his production has been worse than what it could’ve been. Both Haula and Palat’s contacts adjust to modified no trade clauses next season; if you can’t get them out by the deadline because they won’t waive/no one will take them, then the off-season is the next best thing.
The Devils have found themselves with a lot of flotsam and jetsam in the lineup. GM Fitzgerald can start making changes to this support cast at any moment leading to 3 PM tomorrow. He needs to not wait until the off-season to start though. Even without Jack Hughes, this season is worth trying to salvage and build off of. Adding some pieces to push players down the lineup would be good, but so would be getting rid of the guys who aren’t playing NHL level hockey this season. As i said earlier, if there’s no takers, waive the ones without contract protections. At least TRY some of the Utica forwards who haven’t had as much or any NHL opportunity.
It literally couldn’t be any worse than the “depth” the team has been working with in 2024-25.
What are your thoughts on the Devils needing to cut ties with some forwards; do you agree with the names listed? Is there anyone else you’d like to move on from? Would you rather the Devils just add more players and push other guys into more comfortable lineup spots? Leave any and all comments below and thanks as always for reading!