While Tom Fitzgerald has been quietly signing the team’s restricted free agents, their biggest contributor among that group remains unsigned.
After signing Santeri Hatakka today, the New Jersey Devils only have three tendered RFAs in need of a contract. While Nico Daws is likely headed for the AHL on a one-year, two-way contract due to the goaltending picture becoming that of Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen, Nolan Foote is probably more likely to earn a NHL job, considering his waiver status. However, neither Daws nor Foote are even close to Dawson Mercer in terms of expected impact to the team in 2024-25 or how clearly they fit into the long-term picture. Yes, Daws will have his chance when Allen’s contract expires and Markstrom either departs, gets old, or retires. But he still has a lot to prove and earn — as does Foote.
At this point, though, Dawson Mercer’s exact future remains a question mark. He does not need to prove he is an NHL player. He might still need to prove whether he’s a bridge deal or long-term extension candidate. But with the free agent market now just about completely dried up, and an absence of trade rumors, I find myself wondering more and more about what exactly is going on with the Devils and Dawson Mercer.
The Real Dawson Mercer?
Dawson Mercer’s 131 career points in 246 games has him fifth among his 2020 Draft class in overall scoring. And while Lucas Raymond (4th overall) and Seth Jarvis (13th overall) have surpassed him to some extent in the scoring department in similar games played, Mercer may yet end around a similar production pace to Alexis Lafreniere. Had Mercer not had such a down 2023-24 season, as his assist numbers cratered and his goals ticked a bit down, he would probably have finished the year third in his draft class in career scoring, just ahead of Lafreniere (148 points in 298 games) and well behind Raymond (174 points in 238 games) and Stutzle (247 points in 285 games).
If you are someone who is cautious about Dawson Mercer, consider that he was an 18th overall pick and has already accumulated this much experience and this production in comparison to his peers. He is only 22 years old. And his first two seasons showed a lot of signs of sustainably increasing production. Out of his 1.8 points per 60 even strength minutes in his rookie season, 1.6 per 60 were primary points. In his second season, 2.0 out of his 2.5 points per 60 minutes were primary. This is not someone who accumulated a lot of points early on by accident and is now just regressing to “who he really is.”
The coaching staff took an important step forward in 2022-23 when Mark Recchi was replaced by Andrew Brunette as an offensive assistant and power play coach. Under Recchi, Mercer played 155 minutes on the power play and had the most even strength minutes of his career, contributing 5 points to a power play that scored 13 and gave up four goals with him on. When Brunette was hired, Mercer frustratingly saw little power play time but pulled together two goals and eight assists in 108 power play minutes as the team scored 17 goals and gave up three with him on.
Travis Green did not have the same ability to run a power play that Brunette had. Mercer played 10 more minutes on PP2 in 2023-24. In those 118 power play minutes, Dawson Mercer scored four goals, the rest of the Devils scored five, and opponents scored seven. Travis Green’s power play and offense was rotten, and Mercer took a huge step back in it. I can only imagine what Brunette would have been able to do with Mercer, Holtz, and one of Tyler Toffoli or Timo Meier on the second power play unit — but I imagine it would have been a fair bit more watchable than that. This even worsened beyond the power play when Ruff was fired, as Mercer went from scoring 0.44 points per game under Ruff to 0.28 per game under Green. That aside, Jared’s RFA profile on Mercer also makes a point about the health of his best even strength linemate, further limiting his production. The point here is simple: these factors probably won’t repeat themselves, and team-wide improvements will put him in a situation more like his 2022-23 experience than his 2023-24 one.
So, What’s the Hold-up?
Today’s date is July 22 — making this one of the longest RFA negotiation timeframes Tom Fitzgerald has ever had with an NHL player. Jesper Bratt’s negotiation in the 2022 offseason, which led to some fans drawing premature conclusions about his future with the team or growing frustrated with him and his agent, went up to August 3. That would only be another week and a half of waiting from this point. The length of those negotiations and the resulting question that loomed over much of the 2022-23 season led to Jack Hughes notably saying during exit interviews that, “If you want to be in New Jersey, you’ve got to sign the deal,” while Fitzgerald was apparently a bit frustrated about the prior process, which did not repeat itself as they agreed to Bratt’s present eight-year deal in mid-June 2023.
Bratt did say something to NHL.com after he signed that long-term extension that is important to keep in mind. He said, “Obviously, how it had been going in the past with the two-year deal and the one-year deal it was always the best solution at the time, but it was always the long term that I wanted because I want to be a part of this team.” In this case, despite the free agent market being rather dried up with the recent cheap signing of Daniel Sprong in Vancouver, though there are still some forwards out there in Jakub Vrana, Kevin Labanc, Mike Hoffman, and Max Pacioretty, as well as bottom six options, signing anyone beyond Mercer would really necessitate moving someone off the present roster.
Currently, the Devils have $4.976 million in projected cap space, according to PuckPedia. With a bit over $81 million allocated to contracts and an upper cap limit of $88 million, the Devils still have more to juggle than you might expect. Puckpedia notes that they have $1.538 million in bonus overages — bonus money that exceeded the cap in the prior year, which is why their projected cap space is lower than the difference between their contracts and the upper limit. So, with just under $5 million to use, they could sign Mercer to a short-term, low-dollar deal and another free agent. Or, they could sign Mercer to any longer-term deal that comes under $5 million AAV. But that really becomes problematic when you account for the current potential bonuses of $5.1 million that the Devils have among their players. Luke Hughes can earn $1,850,000 in bonuses, while Simon Nemec can earn up to $3,250,000.
While the addition of Brett Pesce means Simon Nemec is much less likely to accumulate the kinds of numbers that would give him his full bonus, he can still earn quite a bit more than his $918,000 ELC. According to Julian Gaudio of The Hockey Writers, Hughes and Nemec can earn bonus money by meeting certain milestones in goals, assists, points, or by being in the top four in ice time on their team, having a high plus-minus, or by being in the top two in blocked shots on the team. Could Nemec still score 25 assists or 40 points? Sure. But with Dillon on the team, he probably won’t get money for blocked shots as he did for 2023-24, and he won’t get ice time money again with the number of high-quality defensemen they have. These potential bonuses are certainly something to keep in mind, but they won’t completely handicap the team because of the moves Fitzgerald made on defense.
And while that means they can probably safely spend around $2 million or so without moving another contract (as I expect Luke Hughes to get a lot of his potential bonus money and for Nemec to get at least a bit of his), it also means this probably cannot be the offseason that Dawson Mercer gets a long-term extension. Signing Mercer to a multi-year, $4.5 million deal might sound appealing, but it could lead to a bonus overage penalty of around $2 to $3 million in 2025-26.
That said, this is the point of the off-season where it just gets uncomfortable as a fan to see someone who you think of as a big part of the team still unsigned. It is a great sign that there has not been any leaking information, which was relatively aplenty with the Jesper Bratt negotiation in 2022. Still, I hope that Tom Fitzgerald realizes what a gem he got at 18th overall in 2020, and that a short-term deal takes shape in the near future. He can always sign another extension after January 1st if he signs a one-year deal, but at that point Fitzgerald will have to juggle him and Luke Hughes while still factoring possible overage penalties from Nemec’s bonus structure, as the Devils already have significant ($72.693 million) money under contract through the 2025-26 season.
Mercer’s Fit with the Devils in the Long-Term
I hope Dawson Mercer signs soon and that Tom Fitzgerald remains steadfast in his refusal to talk about him in trade discussions. I also hope that, if Mercer has to take less money to make the team’s cap situation smoother for a year or two, that he does not get frustrated with his compensation lagging compared to some of his peers and that Tom Fitzgerald keeps that in mind when guys like Erik Haula, Ondrej Palat, Brenden Dillon, and others reach the end of their contracts between the 2026 and 2027 offseasons.
As a skilled center/wing combo, Dawson Mercer is a great tool to have alongside Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier. He has historically fit both of their styles very well, being a great finisher for Hischier and being someone who can keep up with Jack Hughes’ puck movement. Whether or not Mercer returns to form in the 2024-25 season will have a big impact on the team’s success, and I am looking forward to seeing him bounce back, assuming his extension gets done over the course of the next week or so.
And as a skilled forward, Mercer is very notable for starting his career with 246 consecutive games played — that is three seasons without missing a game due to injury. He has received a lot of minutes to develop him in all situations of play, and is pretty responsible on the ice for a 22 year old. In the upcoming season, I want to see Sheldon Keefe expand his usage even further, making him Jack Hughes’ faceoff man while Erik Haula stays on third line checking duty. The Devils still need to figure out who exactly lines up to Jack’s left in the short-term and long-term, but I do not see anyone better fit for the job on his right side than Mercer, especially considering how much better Meier played with Hischier than with Hughes in 2023-24. With Hughes and Mercer, these are two young guys who think about the game in a similar way, and they can lift each other up as they both bounce back from a year they want to forget.
Your Thoughts
What do you think about Dawson Mercer and the kind of contract he should receive with the cap situation being what it is? How do you feel about him as a long-term fit? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.