With a month left before veterans report to training camp, the New Jersey Devils are staring at a roster that looks very different from the one that finished last season. A new general manager, a reshaped front office and a wave of new faces have changed the conversation in New Jersey, and the real question now is whether this group can turn that makeover into a serious run in the Eastern Conference.
For all the attention on the big-picture changes, the Devils’ season may come down to something much simpler: whether their depth scoring finally holds up. The bottom six has been a moving target for years, battered by injuries and constant lineup shuffling. If that area settles in, it could go from weakness to weapon in 2026-27.
A big part of that hinges on Arseny Gritsyuk. The Devils are expecting him to be fully healthy after he missed the final stretch of last season with an upper-body injury in late March. Head coach Sheldon Keefe later said Gritsyuk would need season-ending surgery, but the expectation is that he’ll be ready before the season starts.
Even in a shortened rookie year, Gritsyuk still put up 13 goals and 31 points. What stood out most was how quickly he fit with different linemates. He spent most of 2025-26 on the third line, but he also spent time on the top line and on the power play.
Earlier this summer, Gritsyuk signed a three-year extension worth a $3.25 million average annual value. This season, PuckPedia projects him as a permanent third-liner, and that role should put him in position to drive offense at 5-on-5. Last season, he produced 26 points in 5-on-5 play and was on the ice for 40 goals, which made him one of the steadier pieces in an area where the Devils were anything but steady.
In his second NHL season, he’s expected to take on a much larger load. His playmaking, speed through the neutral zone and wrist shot give him a real chance to break out.
The other major addition is Evan Rodrigues, who came over in the Jacob Markstrom trade. That move gives the Devils something they’ve been chasing for a while: another legitimate option at third-line center.
Rodrigues has topped 30 points in each of the last five seasons, including a career-high 43 in 2021-22. He brings a mix of two-way reliability and energetic puck movement, and he handled a flexible role well for the Florida Panthers last season as injuries pushed him around the lineup. He also picked up more work on special teams, logging his most penalty-kill minutes since 2018-19 with the Buffalo Sabres.
A line with Gritsyuk, Rodrigues and Connor Brown would give New Jersey a very different look in the middle of the lineup. Rodrigues can also slide between center and wing, giving Sheldon Keefe more options depending on how the rest of the roster shakes out. He’s a volume shooter too, with 160 shots last season - nearly double the NHL forward average of 86, according to NHL Edge.
That kind of presence matters because the Devils’ third and fourth lines were not giving them much late last season. They were built around physicality and AHL depth, and the results didn’t follow.
The fourth line, in particular, has been unstable for a while. Luke Glendening opened last season as the main fourth-line center, with Paul Cotter, Stefan Noesen and Brian Halonen rotating on the wings.
The numbers told the story. Natural Stat Trick data showed the Cotter-Glendening-Noesen line posted a 33.33 goals for percentage and a relative shots for percentage of minus-11.10% in 5-on-5 play.
Once injuries piled up in the second half, the Devils leaned on a Cotter-Nick Bjugstad-Maxim Tsyplakov group, and that was even tougher to watch. In 15 games, it managed only two goals and 33 scoring chances.
This season, that unit looks like it could be Jesper Boqvist, Cody Glass and Nick Bjugstad. Boqvist’s return to New Jersey comes with real expectations because of his speed and playoff experience, both of which should help the bottom six right away. Like Glass and Rodrigues, he can also play center or wing, which gives Keefe more ways to mix and match.
Health still sits at the center of all of it. If the Devils can avoid the constant injury churn that wrecked their depth last season, they should be able to keep secondary scoring flowing.
That’s what makes this offseason so important for New Jersey. The Devils have added key pieces, locked in important extensions and built a roster that blends veterans, offense, steady goaltending and dynamic defense. With Sunny Mehta’s vision now taking shape, the middle and lower half of the lineup could be strong enough to push the Devils into a much better 2026-27.
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Martin Brodeurs Devils Legacy Looks More Untouchable Than Ever
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Even with accomplished active netminders like Sergei Bobrovsky, Semyon Varlamov and Connor Hellebuyck in the mix, the gap between todays usage patterns and Brodeurs workload is hard to ignore. The modern game simply does not ask goalies to shoulder the same kind of burden, which is why the Devils legends legacy feels less like a target and more like something the next generation may spend a long time chasing without catching. [Read more 🡒]