Pool Outlook for New Jersey

It was a strange year, to say the least, for the New Jersey Devils, as they were marred with cap problems from the very beginning, thanks to the new deal for Ilya Kovalchuk, a coaching issue, which forced change in the dressing room and an aging Hall of Fame goaltender that struggled to find his stride in the first half of the season. When you take in a late season push for a playoff spot and all that was mentioned above, the Devils finished 23rd in the NHL overall standings and then were fortunate enough to win the NHL draft lottery, moving up their pick to 4th.

A new, yet slightly familiar face led the New Jersey Devils in pool scoring in 2011, as Patrik Elias finished the season with 62 points (21 goals and 41 assists) in 81 games.  Elias finished the year ranked 61st in pool scoring and was one of the few bright spots in the Devils line-up.  Elias has been bouncing up and down the rankings over the past couple seasons, but with a terrible start to the season for a lot of the team's bigger stars, Elias' point production didn't look too bad this year.

The rest of the Devils forward ranks were led by Ilya Kovalchuk (60 points in 81 games), who was supposed to take a better stab at leading the team in overall points, more so at a point per game pace.  Travis Zajac had 44 points in 82 games, Brian Rolston spent time in the minors, but finished with 34 points in 65 games, while Dainius Zubrus had 30 points in 79 games and rookie Mattias Tedenby had 22 points in 58 games.  Very poor production from the forward group in New Jersey, a likely reason for their poor finish this year.

The loss of Zach Parise to a long-term injury at the beginning of the year was also a massive loss to a less-than-dynamic team.

It has been a little while since the Devils had some real offensive punch from their blueline, which brings us to Andy Greene, who led the Devils defense in scoring with 23 points in all 82 games.  Greene wasn't bad in the 2011 season, but without much scoring help up front, he wasn't going to get the assist numbers like other team's top defenders.  Henrik Tallinder (16 points in 82 games) and Mark Fayne (14 points in 57 games), round out the defensemen.  A very disappointing year, indeed.

It wasn't your normal season of watching Martin Brodeur dominating from the Devils crease in 2011, as he had a hard time finding his airtight game.  Brodeur battled a lot of injury problems and missed out on a number of starts, which really hurt him overall.  He finished with only 60 points in 2011, ranking him 68th in pool scoring, which isn't his worst season by the numbers in recent memory, but it could have been his worst season he actually played.  Johan Hedberg finished 5th in team pool scoring with 37 points, taking a good number of starts and actually winning them for the Devils in Brodeur's absence.

2012 Pool Outlook
The Devils, under the guidance of Jacques Lemaire, didn't look too bad at the end of the year, but their salary cap troubles will continue to follow them through the 2012 season, by the early looks of things.  If some more of their budgetary concerns can be addressed before the season starts, there can be hope for a better year under another new coach, but that will take a whole lot of time to find out.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Patrik Elias	Henrik Tallinder	Martin Brodeur
Ilya Kovalchuk	Mark Fayne
Travis Zajac	Anton Volchenkov
Brian Rolston	Colin White
Dainius Zubrus
Mattias Tedenby
David Clarkson
David Steckel
Rod Pelley

There are a couple of key players omitted from this list, as Jacob Josefson didn't quite make the cut all year and Bryce Salvador was hurt all of last year, so they didn't make it, but there are 14 players on this list, who all should be a part of the opening night roster, plus two buyouts, which has their projected annual total up at $47.6 million.  Josefson and Salvador would be big chunks of change against the cap, but I would like to see them in the line-up before throwing their totals in.

Free agent season is going to be a crazy one for the Devils, starting with the unrestricted free agents... Johan Hedberg and Andy Greene, two big players for the team in 2011, are up for free agency this year, Greene being the bigger target of the two, but nevertheless, two pieces with the certain possibility of going to market.

The biggest reason why they would be going to market is because of Zach Parise, who leads the list of players up for restricted free agency this Summer.  Parise, who was injured for the bulk of 2011, will be commanding some pretty good coin from the Devils and with the team already handcuffed by Kovalchuk, it will be interesting to see what management does here.  Also up for restricted free agency... defenseman Anssi Salmela and forward Alexander Vasyunov.

The Devils saw a few of their prospects in and out of their line-up all season long, as the salary cap constraints that were put upon them had a few high-paid players down in the minors while their youth toiled up top.  I would be looking to see forwards Jacob Josefson and Adam Henrique possibly getting a good crack to make the team again in 2012, while Alexander Urbom will get another good look to help add some size to the blueline.  The Devils do like to have more minor league experience in their prospects, so I wouldn't be expecting too much of an impact from the sub-20-year olds.

The Devils depth in their back end has really dwindled over the past few years, especially in the defense-first mode they generally play in.  I would expect the Devils to really go after a kid like Ryan Murphy, who would sort of bring back that Brian Rafalski or Scott Niedermayer element that the team once had.  If defense isn't their concern, look for them to try and get some more size up front from a kid like Sean Couturier.

What I said last year at this time... "For 2011, I'm expecting a lot of the same from the Devils, especially with the core players already signed on. I'm expecting Paul Martin to re-sign with the club and I also have my suspicions that Lamoreillo will be going after another top end blueliner to help out, but I guess it's a question of whether or not they re-sign Kovalchuk. If I was to wager a guess, I'd say an offer hits the table and Kovalchuk shops around come July 1st. A lot on how the roster plays out depends on Kovalchuk, but I don't think the team's success really depends on him, as I see the Devils being in the same position with the same sort of scoring with or without him."

Well, I don't think anyone really saw what was coming for Devils at about this same time last year, so an absolute miss on any prediction is very likely.  Martin did not re-sign with the Devils, opting for free agency, which likely helped the transition towards keeping Kovalchuk for the monster contract that was signed last year.  Kovalchuk did shop around a little bit, with the Kings also in the mix for his services, but the Devils were keen on keeping him and a lot had to play out because of that deal.  Still though, I was a miss on a number of things last year for New Jersey.

I think the Devils can be better in 2012, possibly even playoff-worthy.  Again, working out the team's cap issues will be the top priority, but once everything comes down to a more manageable rate of pay for everyone and Parise is signed to a nice new extension, I think the Devils will preparing for a pretty good year, possibly the swan song of Brodeur's.  A more relaxed atmosphere, a new coach (whoever that might be) should bring the Devils back into a competitive race with other teams and might be a good place to start picking players from again.  It's playoffs or the whole thing gets blown up, in my opinion.