Taking stock of the New Jersey Devils' roster

What do the Devils have in place? What's still left to be done? Let's take a look!

Follow me on Twitter @ToddCordell | @InfernalAccess

Be sure to join the Discord channel to talk hockey, and everything else, with our writers and subscribers.

---

New Jersey Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald has been a very busy man in recent weeks.

Be it via trade or way of free agency, he has added a top-6 winger (Ondrej Palat), a top-9 forward (Erik Haula), a top-4 defenseman (John Marino), a third pairing bruiser (Brendan Smith), and a potential 1A netminder in Vitek Vanecek.

Even with some departures along the way, the team’s forward depth chart is looking quite crowded; especially when you consider in expected promotions to youngsters like Fabian Zetterlund and Alexander Holtz.

With that in mind, I wanted an updated look at the Devils’ DC and to take stock of the roster at hand.

What do the Devils have? What still needs to be done? Let’s go position by position.

Forwards

There are a lot of different ways Lindy Ruff could go about the lines and these aren’t ranked from most skilled to least (obviously Jesper Bratt would be RW1); I’m just providing a possible baseline here.

Fitzgerald noted Erik Haula can play center and free up Dawson Mercer to skate in the top-6. Considering Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier have firm grasps on the No. 1 and No. 2 center slots, that obviously suggests Mercer will be playing wing.

I don’t think Fitzgerald would bypass a top-6 forward if a can’t miss opportunity presents itself but I believe he’s comfortable with this top-6; and he should be.

Ondrej Palat, the team’s marquee add up front, has averaged 55 points per 82 over the last three years. He rounds out the top-6 and should nicely compliment the team’s dynamic, ever-improving crop of forwards.

Barring a player or two moving out, I don’t see the Devils making any further bottom-6 additions.

If you count Zetterlund *and* Holtz, the still Devils have 15 NHL caliber forwards (I excluded Nolan Foote, who might well be one sooner than later). That’s too many.

Trading Andreas Johnsson – who carries a $3.4M cap hit but $750K salary – is a possibility and obvious way to trim the numbers. He has a 10-team no-trade list, though, and that could complicate matters. Tomas Tatar ($4.5M cap hit, $3.25M base salary) is another candidate to be moved.

I would be pretty surprised if the Devils don’t cut bait with one of those two prior to camp.