The New Jersey Devils have a good, productive young core of forwards. For the team to make a deep playoff push they’ll need their other forwards to contribute regularly as well.
In my article last week, I discussed how Timo Meier needs to up his point contribution for the New Jersey Devils in 2024-25. The health and scoring of him, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes will be a large part of whether the team succeed or fails. This won’t be the only factor though; we’ve discussed on and off since last season what the defense and goaltending needs to do to improve the team’s record. Now this brings us to another factor: the remaining forwards.
Depending upon how training camp and the preseason shakes out, the Devils will have 9-10 additional forwards on the roster with one or two as healthy scratches. While the team’s stars will obviously need to be efficient and effective, the supporting cast needs to see some players step up as at least semi-regular contributors as well. While there is some rightful concern over the team not really having depth players who shoot first, they’re going to have to figure it out among them. Or, we can go through the group and make some educated guesses here.
Let’s start with returning Devils. Right off the bat, we can look at a few names that probably earn their roster spot for other reasons. Much as he has some fans for his grit and willingness to play tough, Nathan Bastian isn’t suddenly going to blossom into a goal scoring forward. Whichever of Kurtis MacDermid and Max Willman make the roster (both are listed on Puckpedia right now due to the unsigned RFAs) probably isn’t going to contribute a ton of scoring either. The hope for them has to be that their other skills make them worthy of a roster spot.
Now let’s get to the next group of returning forwards who are already signed, meaning Ondrej Palat, Erik Haula and Curtis Lazar. While Lazar played well and never took a shift off last season, he’s another guy that is more limited in his offensive skill. If he duplicates his 2023-24 season, I’m perfectly fine with 25 points from a fourth liner who brings energy and effort on every shift. Haula has proven he can be a point every other game contributor, but he needs to be more consistent this season and exceeding the 40 point plateau again would benefit the team. Palat has not been able to provide consistent offense either in his time in New Jersey, and his point totals have been worse than Haula’s; if he can somehow manage to chip in 15 goals, I’d consider it a success, but I’m also not holding my breath here. All three of these players have been complementary players with support skill sets, but it would be nice to see one or two of them up their scoring.
That moves us to the three newly acquired forwards in Paul Cotter and two technically “returning” forwards in Tomas Tatar and Stefan Noesen. Cotter is another one who I don’t think we see much of an offensive improvement from. He’s got Lazar-like stats, and while more offense would be nice, he’s another guy who was brought in for aspects of the game other than offense. Noesen and Tatar are two guys that I feel the Devils want to share part of the support scoring load along with Palat/Haula and at least one player still to be discussed. Tatar struggled last season after leaving the Devils, and he could find himself among the Top 6; if he reunites with Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt, he could easily repeat his 2022-23 point totals, which would go a long way toward helping propel the group forward. Noesen on the other hand isn’t as offense focused as Tatar, but has put up the most successful offensive seasons of his career the past two seasons. The question with Noesen will be if he is capable of producing as much with the Devils; he had a 13 goal season with the Devils back in 2017-18, but was still about 10 points shy of his Carolina production.
Finally, we have two players who are unsigned RFAs, but should be signed prior to season’s start: Nolan Foote and Dawson Mercer. Foote is a bit of a wild card, as I feel like the organization expects him to be something, but he hasn’t really had much NHL time to show it yet. If he is to be a Devils regular this season, he’s going to have to show at least the potential to be a regular contributor. Mercer meanwhile is one of the players I think the Devils expect to bounce back and be a key contributor. He his a sophomore slump in his junior year this pasts season, but Mercer has shown that he can be an important piece on offense. He’s the only one left of the Devils’ three first round selections from 2020, so the team clearly sees that he’s more useful on the team than as a trade piece; the goal now is to find a way to get Mercer back to where he was in his first couple of seasons to shoulder some of the scoring load.
To summarize, the support scoring will have to come from multiple sources. If the Devils can get 15 goal seasons from a couple of the less offensively incline guys (Haula, Palat, Noesen) and 20 or more from the two with potential to do so (Mercer and Tatar), then the scoring by committee from the support forwards could work. If guys like Bastian, Lazar, Cotter and Foote can somehow get 10 goals each as well, we shouldn’t have to worry about where the scoring is coming from. If these players don’t perform to this level, then we’re going to have to hope that the stars can drag the team forward, otherwise it could be another long season for Jersey’s Team.
Now I’d like to hear your thoughts on where you think the Devils support scoring will come from. Do you think the new acquisitions will breathe life into the secondary scoring? Are the Devils going to expect more from the returning players? Will the season’s success hinge on guys like Tatar and Mercer getting back to their 2022-23 numbers? Leave any and all comments below and thanks as always for reading!