Devils Will Lean on Defensive Depth | FEATURE 

The first day of training camp was drawing to an end. The players, exhausted after pushing themselves hard for over an hour on the ice, gathered together hunched over near the goal line for one final drill. Everyone’s least favorite: the sprinting conditioning drill.

The players lined up in groups of five on the goal line, sweat dripping off their foreheads and onto the ice. At the whistle, they sprinted to the center red line before returning to the original goal line. At that point they sprinted the length of the ice to the opposite goal line before once again returning to the start.

Rookie defenseman Ethan Edwards took his position alongside four teammates. At the whistle Edwards jolted up the ice. He reached center ice a full stride ahead of everyone else. By the time Edwards was skating the length of the ice, he was two full strides ahead of the pack. His speed never dipped or trailed.

“His skating jumps out to you,” Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe said of the 23-year-old prospect. “His skating gets him to a lot of places. You can do a lot with guys who can skate like that. We’re really happy with him here so far and we’ll just continue to watch.”

“He’s a great skater, really, really good,” said veteran defender Brett Pesce, who has been paired with Edwards so far in camp. “It always makes my life easier when the D partner is a really good skater like him.”

Pesce, 30, has been in the league for over a decade and is helping mentor the younger Edwards.

“He’s a great guy on and off the ice. Very smiley,” Edwards said of Pesce. “He’s good to be around. I’m just trying to learn everything I can from him, getting all the details down in practice. He’s helping me out with that, so it’s been great.”

Working alongside Pesce also means that Edwards, who played four collegiate seasons at Michigan, has drawn the duties of going head-to-head against the Devils’ top offensive forwards. In Thursday’s practice, Edwards went against Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt. During Friday’s scrimmage, Edwards and Pesce helped keep the trio of Nico Hischier, Timo Meier and Dawson Mercer off the scoresheet.

“It’s been a lot of fun lining up against the top dogs,” Edwards said. “It’s been a good experience for me.”

“Playing with Pesce helps in terms of adjusting, Pesce is talking to him a lot,” Keefe said. “But also the way we have the matchups in the drills and the scrimmage, if you’re going to play with Pesce then you’re going to be playing against some of our top NHL players on the other side. I thought he did a nice job.”

Edwards, the Devils’ fourth-round pick (120^th overall) in 2020, is one of several young blueliners in the organization that are fighting for ice time. Simon Nemec and Seamus Casey are two other neophytes that are looking to earn some playing time when the regular season begins.

“Looking at the depth of the defense, Nemec and Casey are a year older,” Keefe said. “Both of these guys look confident out there. There’s really good depth and options there.”

Nemec, 21, has been working with Brenden Dillon during camp. The second-overall pick in 2022 had an up-and-down season last year, but he finished on a high note. Nemec played his best hockey late in the season and in the playoffs, culminating in scoring the double overtime Game 3 winner.

“You forget how young some guys are. This is his third-year pro but he’s 21 years old,” Dillon said. “It seems he’s been around for a long time, and he’ll be a player for a long time. … He looks in great shape. He’s bantering in the room which helps with the comfortability.”

Nemec has added muscle to his 6-foot-1 frame over the summer, which was a goal of his in the off-season.

“The training was harder and more hours. I feel better now,” Nemec said. “I feel stronger on the ice, but every guy is strong here. We’ll see how it goes in preseason.”

His efforts over the summer did not go unnoticed.

“’Nemo’ to me, it’s very evident he’s had a great summer,” Keefe said. “He’s put in work. He’s learned a lot over the last year. He’s come in much more prepared this time around.

“Nemec finished the season incredibly strong. He played his best hockey at the hardest time of the year. That was tremendously encouraging.”

Casey, 21, got his first taste of NHL action last season, appearing in 14 games during the regular season. The second-round pick (46^th overall) in 2022 was called upon in last year’s playoffs and manned the club’s top power play.

“Seamus will continue to push,” Keefe said. “I thought he was a clear standout in the game that he played in Buffalo at the rookie tournament. You could see he’s a step ahead out there. The depth is so important.”

The Devils opened training camp without defensemen Luke Hughes (contract negotiation) and Johnathan Kovacevic (knee surgery). When the Hughes contract will be finalized is yet to be determined. But Kovacevic will be out possibly until January. Which means there are some openings for jobs and playing time.

“We’ve got great depth. I think that’s extremely important,” Keefe said. “We used to talk a lot about teams that are really serious about winning really need about 10 defensemen. You need to be that deep to play a really long time and handle adversity. I think we’ve got some great options as we saw last season. I think the group is even better this time around.”

“That’s always been the goal to try and build a deep D corps,” general manager Tom Fitzgerald said. “It becomes a luxury when those kids start pushing through and are ready to play every day. It takes the longest for a young defenseman to get a good feel for this league and be consistent and (find out) what it takes. We feel we do have some good young defensemen here pushing through.”

The Devils also have other young D-men with some NHL experience with Dennis Cholowski, Calen Addison and Jeremy Hanzel.

Working with those defensemen and the veterans in the lineup will be new assistant coach Brad Shaw, who has over two decades of NHL experience as both and assistant and head coach.

“Shaw has tremendous experience both with veterans and how to relate to them and help them get better, get their game in order, but also developing young, elite defensemen,” Keefe said. “He’s coached a long list of some of the best defensemen in our league and really high draft picks. That’s where our defense is at. We have a mix of veteran and really young players that need to take significant steps for us to compete. That’s what I was seeking. When Shaw became available, it was a fairly easy decision from there.”

With the exception of Brian Dumoulin, the Devils have many of the same defensemen returning this year. Except for youngsters like Nemec and Casey, they are one more year wiser and more experienced. And for other budding prospects like Edwards, the opportunity is there to force their way into the lineup.

“We showed last year how important it was to have depth and have young players coming and pushing,” Keefe said. “Both pushing our other guys but being ready when needing them. We started last year without Luke Hughes and Brett Pesce being available due to injury. We needed guys to step in.”