It’s been a while since we’ve had some takes, and howdy, do we have some TAKES for you.
As the calendar prepares to turn from July to August, we’re at about the midway point of the NHL offseason. We’re still about six weeks away from New Jersey Devils rookies reporting to training camp, with veterans scheduled to follow one week later.
Considering we live, eat, breathe, and sleep content when it comes to our favorite hockey team, there’s only so much one can say and continue to write about the trainwreck that was the 2023-24 Devils season. It’s imperative to turn the page and look forward, and in doing so, finding new talking points and takes to get us through the dog days of summer.
You know that I’m a person who has plenty of good takes and opinions, as I’m one who will often remind you of that. I haven’t been shy about coming up with them, which ultimately led to the creation of the now World Famous “Moore-On or Moron” column.
To paraphrase and/or borrow a quote from soon-to-be Hockey Hall of Famer Jeremy Roenick, often, “I’m right in my analysis”. Hence, the Moore-On half of that title, as I’m usually on to something when I throw something out there. This isn’t always the case though as nobody bats 1.000%. Whether I’m a bit premature with an opinion or wrong for reasons beyond conventional thinking or I’m just flat out wrong, it might be fair to label me with the term “moron” for getting it wrong. It’s fine. I’m a big boy and I can handle it.
With that said, I do have a few Devils-related thoughts that probably don’t quite have enough substance for a deep-dive column but are certainly things I’ve considered as the 2024-25 campaign approaches. So let’s dive into them and see if I’m spot on with my analysis or if these ideas might need a little more time in the oven.
Jack Hughes Will Be a Hart Trophy Finalist This Upcoming Season
No half-measures right out of the gate. We go big or we go home with these TAKES.
We know that Jack Hughes has all the talent in the world. We know that if he’s healthy, he’s one of the best players in the world. The Devils go as he goes, and at 23 years old, he still might have another level or two to gain as he inches closer to being a finished product, in terms of his development as a hockey player.
We’ve seen what Hughes looks like at his best, setting a Devils franchise record for points in a single season. His offense can carry a team and he can play his way into the Hart Trophy discussion, as I wrote back during the 2022-23 season when he was on one of those types of runs. Hughes wound up suffering a minor injury and between that and a bit of a cool off, he finished 8th in the Hart voting that season. We’ve also seen the other end of that extreme where he can put up massive point totals despite looking nothing like the player he was prior due to injury, with last season being a prime example of that.
Hughes hasn’t entered his prime yet, so there’s reason to believe he could continue to get even better. 50 goals in a season? 55 goals? 60 goals? 110 points? 120 points? More? It’s really going to come down to a special kind of year where everything just clicks, he plays every game (or close to every game) in that given season, the power play production takes a leap, the Devils find the right linemates who click with him, and a little bit of puck luck as well. The thought of Hughes having a season where everything he does just works and he shoots anywhere from 18-20% is downright scary, and there’s no reason that that can’t happen as early as this upcoming season. With that type of campaign, its probably just a matter of when, not if, he wins a Hart Trophy.
But my take wasn’t that he wins the Hart Trophy this season. It’s that he’s a finalist, which means he finishes Top 3 in the voting. Can Jack do that, and can Jack do that as early as this upcoming season?
It’s not outlandish to suggest so.
Consider the betting odds in the futures market, as Jack Hughes is the consensus +1100 pick for the Hart Trophy winner for this upcoming season, trailing only previous winners Connor McDavid at +175, Nathan MacKinnon at +650, and Auston Matthews at +900. That price may vary depending upon your sportsbook of choice, but the fact that he’s right there in that second tier along with previous Hart winners Leon Draisaitl and Nikita Kucherov in an indicator of what the hockey world thinks of him as a player. He’s a young superstar player who plays an exciting brand of hockey on a team that a) plays in the shadows of New York City, one of the biggest media markets in the world and b) should be right back in the mix for a playoff spot. The PHWA voters are going to look for reasons to put Hughes on their ballots, assuming Hughes does his part (and the Devils do theirs).
Still, I hesitate to say he’ll finish Top 3 in the voting. The term ‘generational talent’ is loosely thrown around for all sorts of players these days, but if anyone is indeed a generational talent, its Connor McDavid. McDavid has finished Top 3 in the Hart voting six times in the last eight seasons and won three times. He will be in the Top 3 once again if he has a typical Connor McDavid season. MacKinnon is the reigning Hart Trophy winner who is perennially in the mix and has a legitimate argument of his own for being the best player in the world right now. Matthews just scored 69 goals playing in the biggest media market in the league (and a market where 80% of the greater hockey media who votes on these things calls home). Even Matthews, a former Hart winner himself, couldn’t crack the Top 3 last year, as Kucherov was the runner up behind MacKinnon. And that’s before we consider whether anyone else makes a case, whether its Quinn Hughes (the top Hart vote getter among defensemen last season) to Matthew Tkachuk to Sasha Barkov to Artemi Panarin to David Pastrnak. That’s before considering the last of the old guard in Sidney Crosby (who finished 9th last year) to the new age contenders who will be the mix before long such as Connor Bedard.
Jack Hughes will probably need a few things beyond his control to break right to be in the Top 3 this season. I equate it to being the 4th best tennis player in the world when Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic were winning all of the majors throughout the 2010s. There’s no shame in being, say, Andy Murray during that run, and even Murray was able to break through to win a few majors of his own. That might be where Jack ultimately fits in terms of the NHL superstar hierarchy. Jack has work to do on his part to put himself in the MVP conversation on a perennial basis, but I do think he can get there. Just maybe not this year.
I predict that Jack will indeed have an excellent season and set new marks for goals and points by a Devils player for a single season in franchise history. Meaning, I think he tops the 48 goals Brian Gionta scored in 2005-06, and I think he will be the first Devils player with 100 points in the regular season, topping his mark of 99 from two seasons ago. I expect the Devils to be right back in the playoffs next season and I expect that Hughes will be a big part of the reason why. I just think that there will be a handful of players with stronger MVP cases to where Jack doesn’t make the Top 3.
Verdict: Moron
The Devils Should Carry Eight Defensemen This Season to Protect Santeri Hatakka
The Devils do have a bit of an upcoming roster crunch, as they theoretically have nine NHL defensemen under contract for next season between Dougie Hamilton, Luke Hughes, Brett Pesce, Brenden Dillon, Jonas Siegenthaler, Simon Nemec, Johnathan Kovacevic, Santeri Hatakka, and Nick DeSimone. That number rises to ten if I include Kurtis MacDermid, who is like former Devils defenseman Brendan Smith in that he too is bad at multiple positions.
I don’t really worry about whether or not the Devils lose DeSimone or MacDermid if either player was to be exposed to waivers. DeSimone was a waiver claim himself after all, and MacDermid’s contract will probably see to it that he’s tethered to the Devils organizational depth chart in some capacity for the foreseeable future. But I do think there is some mild concern that the Devils could lose Hatakka if they were to expose him. As a result, there might be some belief that the Devils should consider keeping him and carrying eight defensemen on the roster.
Hamilton, Pesce, Dillon, and Siegenthaler aren’t going anywhere. The Devils COULD send down Luke Hughes or Simon Nemec as they don’t require waivers, but I’ll save your time with a spoiler alert….they’re not going to send down Luke Hughes or Simon Nemec, nor should they to protect Hatakka. That leaves Kovacevic, who is the new guy in town but one that Fitzgerald didn’t turn away when Montreal offered him up via trade. The Devils see something in Kovacevic’s game that they like that they want him around, so it probably won’t be him exposed to waivers either.
The Devils could get around all of this by carrying 8 defensemen on the roster, but that would leave them with one extra forward. I don’t think this is an ideal way of team building as twice as many forwards dress for every NHL game than defensemen do, and that’s before considering the Devils have a history of leaving injured players on the roster as “healthy scratches” and only putting them on IR or LTIR when its absolutely necessary. Odds are, if the Devils leave Hatakka on the roster past Opening Night, there will come a time where they’ll need to make a roster move and risk exposing him later anyways. And there’s a decent chance at that time where some other team is dealing with an injury and the Devils might wind up losing Hatakka regardless. Add in the fact that the Devils are probably going to carry a useless forward in MacDermid, which means they’d effectively be carrying zero depth forwards. This isn’t exactly ideal when the Devils are one of those teams that often plays more back-to-backs than their Western Conference colleagues. You want to have a forward who can actually play for you in a day’s notice without moving heaven and earth to find a connecting flight or any other logistical challenges that might need to be navigated to get someone from Utica on a whim.
The Devils might wind up losing Hatakka no matter what they do, but I think the smartest move they can make is to expose him to waivers at the end of training camp when every team is cutting down to 23 and try to slip him past waivers to Utica then. If it works, great! The Devils have great depth at the AHL level. If it doesn’t, its not ideal as I’d rather have Hatakka as an injury callup than, say, Colton White. That said, its not worth losing sleep over, and its not worth constructing a roster that isn’t ideal to protect Hatakka. Maybe injuries pop up in camp that delay the inevitable, but for now, I’d expect Hatakka to be on the outside looking in when it comes to an NHL roster spot in 2024-25.
Verdict: Moron
The Devils Should Consider Utilizing a Luke Hughes-Simon Nemec Defensive Pairing
The prevailing thought when the Devils signed Brett Pesce was that he would be a good defensive partner for Luke Hughes. And it does make sense….pair the talented, young, offensive defenseman with the guy who might be the best defensive defenseman on the roster.
That line of thinking has some merit, but I go back to something GM Tom Fitzgerald had said during his post-free agency media availability that gives me pause.
“Luke has to take a step in defending….if he is playing with Pesce, he is playing against top lines, so he has to take a step and really respect the fact that defending comes first over offense. If he is going to play with a player like that, that is his role.”
I think one could view this as a very direct critique of Luke’s defense after his first full NHL season, but I see where Fitzgerald is coming from.
The Devils are going to lean on Pesce heavily defensively, both on the penalty kill and at 5v5. They are also going to lean heavily on Siegenthaler and Dillon in that respect, as they are the veteran defensive defensemen on the roster. They’re also going to lean heavily on Dougie Hamilton, who has averaged 21:28 over his first 164 games as a New Jersey Devil and is entering Year 4 of a contract paying him $9M AAV. He is a top pairing defenseman and just because he’s not a great defensive defenseman means they’re still not going to ask him to play tough minutes from time to time.
Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec finished 3rd and 14th, respectively, in the Calder voting last season. They played 21:28 and 19:52 a night. Neither player has turned 21 years old yet. The Devils asked a lot out of both players last season due to the season-ending injury to Hamilton, the other injuries the Devils had on the blueline, and the general inconsistencies the Devils experienced. I think a fair assessment of both players is while they did have their struggles and both hit the rookie wall, they performed about as well as one could reasonably expect given the circumstances and what was being asked of them.
Barring any training camp or preseason injuries, the Devils should be healthy entering the 2023-24 campaign. Which means they should be able to properly slot defensemen, something that they were unable to do last season due to the Hamilton injury. I don’t think its an accident that part of the reason why the Devils had as much success as they did in 2022-23 was because for the first time in a long-time, their blueline was deep enough to where guys weren’t playing over their heads. Damon Severson wasn’t being asked to play top pairing minutes and was a more effective player as a result.
I wouldn’t call Simon Nemec strictly a defensive defenseman, but I do think his skillset is a natural compliment to Luke Hughes’s strengths as a player. And while some may see it as a slight to put both players on the bottom pairing seeing as they both have far greater long-term upside than that, I view it as a smart way to get both players easier matchups and insulate both of them as they continue their development. Its not the biggest sample size, but the Hughes-Nemec pairing did post a 58.49% CF% and xGF% of 61.44% in 176:49 of ice time at 5v5. Those numbers come in at 56.27% CF% and 60.32% xGF% at 5v5 score and venue adjusted. It should be noted that Luke typically got more offensive zone starts while Nemec was more balanced, but its enough of a body of work with the two of them together to where I wouldn’t outright dismiss any successes as entirely meaningless either. John touched on this a bit when he wrote about last year’s pairings, but I think we generally agree that a Hughes-Nemec pairing has the potential to work, in part because it has.
Obviously, this will come down to what Sheldon Keefe decides, but we know in general, it takes defensemen some time to hit their peaks. Luke and Nemec are both years away from that. Perhaps one or both takes a massive step next season to where the Devils are comfortable playing them against top lines, and they’re not playing them in that role out of sheer necessity like they did last season. Until then, I think pairing Luke and Nemec together and letting them destroy lesser competition makes sense, at least to start the season.
Verdict: Moore-On
The Devils Need To Be More Willing To Participate When It Comes to Physicality and Extracurriculars
The Devils made several strides towards addressing one of my biggest critiques with the roster by getting guys like Dillon, Stefan Noesen, and Paul Cotter to make them tougher to play against.
When I wrote during the season how the team was soft, I used an analogy comparing them to the kid who got picked on by the grade school bully. And while I can’t speak for other people or condone schoolyard violence, I’m old enough to recall from personal experiences how the bully tends to get bored and move on once you punch him in the face and let him know you’re not going to put up with his crap anymore.
I’m not saying the Devils should all of a sudden start throwing flying elbows just because the guy(s) on that team across the river are allowed to do so with no repercussions. But I do think it would benefit the Devils to send a message that last year’s soft team is dead and gone and that crap isn’t going to fly moving forward.
Now, what does that even mean? Your mileage may vary how much of this actually matters but to me, its about setting the tone. Maybe that’s an open ice hit to show that things are different this time around. Maybe its Nico Hischier or Jack Hughes having enough of the post-whistle scrum shenanigans and giving someone an extra shove. Maybe its the goalie giving a guy a little jab with his blocker because he didn’t appreciate getting snowed the shift prior. Or a little whack of someone’s shin pads because you didn’t like a hit a few shifts earlier. It could be a lot of things, but collectively, I think its as simple as letting the rest of the league know that the days of pushing these Devils around is over.
Of course, you don’t want to take penalties, but after watching this team get pushed around last year, I’m going to give them quite a bit of leeway when it comes to standing up for themselves. And if they happen to take a 2 minute minor for roughing in the process, so be it. Go kill the penalty. I’m not going to rip someone on the team for having someone’s back, and I’m not going to rip someone on the team for having said enough is enough and sticking up for themselves. The Devils should be good enough offensively and defensively to be able to overcome the types of penalties I’m referring to.
I think some of this will come naturally thanks to the addition of players like Dillon and Noesen, guys I consider to be no-nonsense players. I think some of it though also needs to come from the guys who were here last year so Dillon and Noesen aren’t fighting all of their battles for them. I’m not asking Jack Hughes with his surgically repaired shoulder to throw Scott Stevens-esque hits. I’m not asking a mild-mannered Nico Hischier to drop the mitts and get into a fight instead of F-bombing someone on the opposing team once he gets back to the bench. But when the leaders of your team show that they have a little bit of that in their toolkit and that fire in their bellies, there’s no excuses for the other 21 players on the roster to not bring it.
The Devils are not going to be the Florida Panthers when it comes to physicality. They’re not going to be the 1995 Devils when it comes to physicality. But they can be a team that shows that they’re not going to be pushed around. Maybe they won’t be a team that initiates, but they can show they’re not a soft team either. They can show that they will stand their ground if you challenge them. There are plenty of examples of recent championship caliber teams who would fit that description.
The biggest question to me is whether or not some of the guys who have been here for several years now actually have that in them, and its something that I don’t really have an answer for. We’ve seen Jack throw the body around a little bit in the playoffs, which is uncharacteristic for him. But its one of those things where for the most part, you either have that edge to your game, or you don’t. A lot of that sort of stuff was allowed to slide last season, perhaps because the entire team was banged up at one point or another and eventually, the season got out of reach. That can not be the case again this upcoming season.
Verdict: Moore-On