The regular season begins in less than a week and the Devils still have plenty of decisions to make; particularly in their bottom-6.
Entering camp they already had 14 forwards on one-way contracts, and Reid Boucher along with Stefan Matteau were also supposed to compete for spots up front. That's a lot of competition.
Lou Lamoriello and the Devils front office elected to make things even more competitive when they agreed to have Jordin Tootoo, Ruslan Fedotenko and Scott Gomez in camp on a tryout basis. Ryan Carter is also in camp without a contract.
Fedotenko really didn't show much, but Carter looks like the same player he was last year (a good one), Tootoo has played very well, and Gomez has shown he may still have some offensive ability in the tank.
Stephen Gionta, Steve Bernier, Jacob Josefson, Gomez, Tootoo, Carter and (somehow) Cam Janssen are all fighting for three or four jobs. That's seven players. Obviously a few of these guys will be cut/waived/traded and, to their credit, they've made it difficult on the Devils to decide who those players will be with strong preseason performances.
Gomez and Janssen are the only players who have been on the ice for more shot attempts against than for. In Gomez' defense, the team-wide Philadelphia stinker sunk his numbers a bit, and he does have a couple goals to his credit.
Tootoo and Josefson both needed strong preseasons to make the team, and to this point they've fared quite well.
The next game or two will be big for all of these guys.
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On the defensive side of things, all the kids are getting one last look tonight. Jon Merrill will make his preseason debut, while Adam Larsson, Eric Gelinas, Damon Severson and Seth Helgeson all find themselves in the lineup. The first three are locks, obviously, but Severson and Helgeson have made strong pushes to make the team as 6th/7th/8th defensemen.
I think, ultimately, Severson and Helgeson will be assigned to Albany, but expect those two to be the first call ups when a blue liner inevitably suffers an injury.
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