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1) Barring a trade for a top-4 defenseman prior to the expansion draft, the New Jersey Devils will be protecting one of Ben Lovejoy, Jon Merrill or John Moore.
I'm not exactly sure which route Ray Shero and co. will take -- you can make a case in different ways for each player -- but, if it were my call, I'd protect Jon Merrill.
He is the youngest of the three, cheapest of the three, and the Devils invested more in Merrill, a former 2nd round pick, than they did in Lovejoy or Moore, both of whom were signed as free agents.
Merrill was the best of the three in terms of 5v5 Corsi For%, Scoring Chance For%, suppressing shots, scoring chances and he was also pretty good penalty killer.
Moore is the best point producer, and Lovejoy is the best penalty killer, but Merrill is probably the best overall player. He is the one I'd keep.
2) I know some will point to Moore's point totals, and the lack of offense the Devils get from the defense, as a reason to keep him around but the Devils are a noticeably worse team with him on the ice than Merrill, for example.
With Moore on the ice at 5v5, the Devils generated 22.97 scoring chances per 60 minutes and allowed 27.98 (-4 per 60). With Merrill on the ice, the Devils generated 22.81 and allowed 23.6 (-.80 per 60).
Moore puts up more points but he jumps into the play and takes himself out of position a lot to get them. That shouldn't be looked at as a positive.
3) The other day
I wrote about the possibility of Jordan Eberle landing in New Jersey and some suggested they'd be hesitant to give up, say, Moore and a couple draft picks -- the Devils have a ton of 2nds and 3rds over the next two drafts -- for Eberle.
To me, that is downright ridiculous. On a down year, Eberle still recorded 20 goals, 50 points and averaged more 5v5 points per 60 than David Krejci, William Nylander, Kyle Turris, Nathan MacKinnon, Cam Atkinson and Ryan Johansen, among many others.
I don't know how anyone could think the Devils would be better off with a depth defender and a couple picks that have a 20-30% of becoming regular NHL players than a player like Eberle.
If Edmonton is going to sell low on him and draft picks plus a cheap NHL defender is what they want (they'd like to clear cap and are apparently looking for a defenseman with Andrej Sekera's injury expected to carry into next season), Ray Shero should call Peter Chiarelli every five minutes until they have a deal.
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