2 New Jersey Devils Prospects Who Could Get Called Up This Season

As the season gets underway, players will begin to suffer injuries as they sacrifice their bodies for the sake of their team, not to mention the ever-present concern of a positive Covid diagnosis. Eventually, there will be players who will need to miss games, and others will need to be called in to replace them in the lineup. Here are two such prospects who could see some playing time on the New Jersey Devils this season.

Alexander Holtz

With the injury to Jack Hughes leaving the Devils' top 6 in flux for the foreseeable future, we may see an expedited arrival on Alexander Holtz into the NHL. The 7th-overall pick from 2020, Holtz played in both the SHL and AHL last season, producing at a solid rate in both leagues. He followed that up by notching 2 goals and 4 points in three preseason games, only losing out on a roster spot to Dawson Mercer. However, since being assigned to the AHL, Holtz scored 2 goals in his first game of the season. He looks to be developing at a rapid pace, and there aren't many prospects the Devils still have in the pipeline that project to play at as high a level as Holtz does. The only issue is that Holtz doesn't directly fill the role of Hughes as a centreman, instead being listed as a RW. The Devils have options there too, such as Sharangovich, that could shift over to the centre position and open up a spot for Holtz, but a call-up will require more than just plugging the young Swede into Hughes's spot and hitting the start button.

ICYMI: Alex Holtz is a beast.

📸: @UticaComets pic.twitter.com/nj0KWMqETI

— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) October 18, 2021

Nico Daws

This player just barely fits into this write-up given he was actually called up just yesterday. Between the recently-announced injury to Jonathan Bernier, MacKenzie Blackwood's ongoing injury recovery as well as his continuing unvaccinated status against Covid-19, and Scott Wedgewood's shall-we-say "uneven" performance through his 41 NHL starts, including an ugly one already this season, and suddenly there looks to be a major vacancy at the goaltending position in New Jersey. The issue here is that Dawes is only 20 years old, very young to be relied upon to start games at the NHL level. His one and only AHL game went well, he finished with a 2.01 GAA and a .926sv% after getting the win for the Utica Comets, but such a small sample size is not exactly a reliable gauge of where this player is at in his development. It's a tough call, putting goalies under the NHL spotlight before they're ready can result in problems with their development down the road. Then again, the same could have been said about Spencer Knight, and look at what he's been able to do in Florida well ahead of schedule. We'll find out if Daws can achieve a similar result at some point this coming weekend with the Devils set to play three games in four days.

Which players do you think should get a shot with the Devils this season?

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports