Quoting: Erkadurk347
Yea Mercer looked like a beast. I don’t think it would be a wrong decision to put him in the Nhl this year. I just think that if Foote isn’t in the nhl this year, he won’t progress anymore. Also Subban is a turnover machine bc he tries to do everything and turns the puck over bc he sucks. He also doesn’t know/doesn’t want to play defense. If he was getting paid league minimum, he’d still have negative value imo. Jaros is better defensively than Subban and he’s better offensively bc Subban loves to turn the puck over. But I would be perfectly fine with Mercer making the team, but I would also like to see Foote out there too bc then those players progress and the devils could be competitive in 2022-2023
As far as Subban goes, I was very anti-Subban for a while. I do think he was placed above his playing role, but when he avoids trying to do too much, he's actually not that bad. Jaros has struggled to stay at the NHL level, so that is why I would be worried about just trading Subban and being left with Jaros, as the drop off for the next injury would be baaaad. Walsh is still at a point in development he could get wrecked. Just keep Jaros at the 7th spot or if he outplays Subban, cool.
I get what you mean about Foote, technically there are two spots as Boqvist is still waiver exempt, so if you had a line of Foote-Mercer-AJ, it should really shut up any of those fans that are AJ-stans that say he isn't given a shot (he hasn't earned it like Kuokkanen or Sharagovich did) as there is talent there to be a good 3rd line.
If Mercer is sent to the AHL to find his legs, totally cool, just saying he would be my favorite to make it.