Have the Devils Learned Anything From Letting a Top Prospect Sit as a Healthy Scratch?

Simon Nemec should be playing hockey somewhere, whether its for the Devils or Utica.

Two years ago, the New Jersey Devils went on an epic 13-game winning streak. Vibes were at an all-time high and everybody was feeling good, but there was one thing that was not well in Devilland.

One-time top Devils prospect Alexander Holtz was a frequent healthy scratch during much of that run and a notable portion of the 2022-23 season as the Devils frequently ripped off multiple-game winning streaks. Lineups generally don’t change much coming off of a win, never mind bunches of them. As GM Tom Fitzgerald said months later, Holtz wound up becoming a “victim of our success” as he missed out on valuable playing time during a critical stage in his development.

Things might have gotten better for Holtz in 2023-24 in the sense that at least he made it into all 82 NHL games the following season, but his usage was sporadic and inconsistent. Holtz failed to take that next step he needed in his development, and with the Devils being a ‘win now’ team, they decided they couldn’t wait on Holtz any longer to figure it out on his own. The Devils ultimately shipped Holtz and Akira Schmid out to Vegas for Paul Cotter and a draft pick.

The Devils, as an organization, decided during that 22-23 season that Holtz was better off training and practicing with the big club instead of seeing game action at Utica. It’s an argument that certainly has some merit. The Devils have a diverse pool of players with differing skill sets on the NHL roster. No AHL team has players like Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Dougie Hamilton, Jonas Siegenthaler or some of the other players that he would be otherwise competing against in practice regularly. All different styles of player, all with varying skill sets that you just don’t see from your run of the mill AHL player. The speed of the NHL game is also notably different when compared to the AHL product.

I don’t know if Holtz playing more games at Utica in 22-23 would have eliminated the warts in his game that ultimately caused the Devils to give up on him. Frankly, its debatable whether or not the AHL is even a good developmental league at all, as our old friend CJ Turturo once wrote.

I do credit Holtz for putting in the work to improve his skating, but his main bugaboo that found him in the doghouse was related to compete level and his play away from the puck. When push came to shove, Holtz failed to take that next step in his development. It’s a situation that probably warrants an even deeper dive of how not to handle the development of top prospects. It’s one where everybody from Fitzgerald to former head coach Lindy Ruff to the rest of the coaching and development staff and Holtz himself deserve some blame for why he couldn’t take that next step.

Fast forward two years later and there are some similarities to what went on then with Holtz and what is going on now with former #2 overall pick Simon Nemec.

Nemec played the first nine games of the 2024-25 season for the Devils, primarily playing with Seamus Casey. Overall, I’d say Nemec was ok through those nine games, all things considered. Some good. Some bad. All while playing sheltered minutes. Nothing that would be unexpected from a 20 year old defenseman with 69 games of NHL experience.

But the Devils are a win now team. Being “ok”, theoretically, isn’t good enough. So it’s not a surprise that once Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce were healthy enough to reenter the Devils lineup, they immediately did so on October 24th. That came at the expense of Nemec and Daniil Misyul, who had recently replaced Casey in the lineup.

Nemec hasn’t played since October 22. Nemec also wasn’t picked to get into the lineup on Monday against the Edmonton Oilers despite the fact that Nathan Bastian suffered a jaw injury a few days prior.

Sheldon Keefe is right in that the Devils have a good thing going right now with their defensive pairings. So I don’t blame him for not trying to shoehorn Nemec in and going 11/7, even if it meant that the Devils had to play Kurtis MacDermid instead.

I see that, I see a Devils team that has played good for the most part, and it certainly seems to me that like Holtz before him, Nemec might also be a “victim of our success”. Which raises the question of whether or not it makes sense to continue keeping him on the NHL roster as a healthy scratch when he should be playing games somewhere.

A lot of the same arguments that applied to Holtz a few years ago apply here as well. Nemec has the benefit of competing against very good NHL players here in practice. He’s under the guidance, tutelage, and teachings of the NHL coaching staff as opposed to the Comets. But others would argue that there’s no experience like in-game experience. Defensemen typically take longer to develop and with well under 100 NHL games, Nemec isn’t close to being a finished product in terms of his development.

I say all this with the caveat that I believe Nemec is a more complete prospect than somebody like Holtz, who is more one-dimensional and really needs to be exceptional at that one-dimension where I can comfortably ignore the other flaws with his game. I also say this noting that this falls under the umbrella of “good problems to have” that the Devils have too many good defensemen at the moment and as a result, somebody has to be the odd man out. I don’t doubt that the second somebody ahead of him on the depth chart gets dinged up and needs a couple games off to recover that Nemec won’t be the next man up, and he’ll probably be much better this time around playing with NHL-caliber players instead of prospects like Casey and Misyul.

That said, who knows when that might be? Four of the six Devils defenseman have played in every game thus far, and the two who haven’t aren’t players who are typically in and out of the lineup. If they’re healthy, they play. They clearly don’t want to go 11/7. Nobody’s play on the blueline at the moment warrants taking a seat. It’s not necessarily Nemec’s fault or anything that he did specifically that made him a healthy scratch. And while Nemec might have more upside than some of the guys ahead of him, he is not better than any of them right now. Which means that it’s Nemec’s job to stay ready for the next opportunity.

With the Devils now home from their Western Canada road trip, I would hope that they give strong consideration to letting Nemec play top pairing minutes at Utica until he’s needed once again at the NHL level. I get that the AHL isn’t the NHL in terms of speed or skill level, but there are still plenty of little nuances that young players need to learn when it comes to compete, positioning and stick play. He will only pick stuff like that up from actual, in-game experience. Getting Nemec all the playing time he can handle and those valuable reps now while he is still a developing player matters.

The Devils would be better served letting Colton White or Nick DeSimone (who both have well over 300 professional games worth of experience) sit in the chicken tender suite while Nemec gets the reps he needs at a critical stage of his development. Neither White nor DeSimone are part of the long-term plans in New Jersey, and both are finished products in terms of what they are as hockey players.

The last thing the Devils should want is a wasted year of Nemec’s development. and while the arguments for keeping him around with the NHL team might have some merit, you don’t get that time back. Once its gone, its gone. The Devils thought they were doing right by Holtz two years ago, but he wound up only appearing in 39 games that season between the Devils and Comets. I’m not saying that had he played a full slate, his development goes differently. Playing time does need to be earned and Holtz didn’t do enough to earn it. But I am saying that while the Devils might’ve had Holtz’s best interests in mind at the time, it still turned out to be the wrong decision for what was best for him long-term. The Devils making the best of a bad situation that they themselves had a hand in creating by trading for Cotter doesn’t undo the mistakes they made in the past with Holtz. And now that they’re in a similar situation with another top prospect, they have a chance to do things differently this time around. Will they? We shall see.

Tom Fitzgerald shouldn’t apologize to anyone for the depth he has assembled on the blueline. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there’s only so many spots to go around on the NHL roster. After adding Brenden Dillon, Brett Pesce, and Johnathan Kovacevic this offseason, someone was always going to be the odd man out once everyone was healthy. That doesn’t mean this is a death knell for Nemec’s career or an indictment of him as a player that he isn’t good enough right this second to beat any of those guys out. Far from it. But Nemec needs to continue getting regular playing time in order for him to continue developing as a player. Something that he doesn’t appear to be getting in New Jersey anytime soon.

Playing in the AHL might not be ideal for Nemec, but it’s better than nothing.