On the Brink of 100 | FEATURE

If Dawson Mercer laces them up against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, it will be his 100th NHL game. Reaching 100 in the NHL is an achievement. It's even more impressive since the forward played all 100 consecutively.
In his rookie campaign, Mercer was the only Devils player to hit all 82 games. He was around longer than those NHL games as he participated in prospect camp, training camp, and pre-season. As a result, Mercer had quite a chunk of time in Newark playing for the team that drafted him 18th overall during the 2020 Draft.
"Pretty exciting year in general, 82 games is a lot," said Mercer in his May exit interview. "I enjoyed every step of it. Pretty happy that when it was coming down to the wire to be playing in them all, and to have the opportunity to play all 82. That's an accomplishment I'm proud of, to be in all the games and stay healthy, and it was great this season."

Mercer has the potential to be the fifth player ever to play their first 100 games consecutively with the Devils franchise. He joins the ranks of Scott Gomez, Ed Gilbert (Kansas City Scouts), Kirk Muller, and Tom Edur (Colorado Rockies) to achieve this feat.
Now that Mercer has had more than a cup of coffee in the NHL, everything is more comfortable and natural the second time around.
"(I'm) still the same, I want to keep on getting better, working towards that every day," Mercer said. "At the same time, you want that comfort level, you show up to the rink, the routine is more set, you understand what's going on every day and you have a better understand of how everything works.
"So I think using that to my advantage is a major thing but I've always taken it day-by-day kind of thing and making sure I don't look too far in the future, and that's really been working for me so far."
Mercer's rookie campaign was quite a successful one. The forward had 17 goals and 25 assists for a total of 42 points. How has the forward improved since game one?
"The strength of his game, the small ice play. I think his skating is better from game one to now," Devils head coach Lindy Ruff said about Mercer's growth. "He's a stronger player now than he was maybe 80 games ago.
"He brings hustle, he brings enthusiasm. He can play in any situation. He can play on the power play, he can kill penalties so he's a real versatile guy. He can play the wing, he can play in the middle so I think anytime you can have a player that's pretty comfortable everywhere, it's a handy guy to have."
Mercer is driven to keep getting better and improve all areas of his game.
"I wanted to work on speed, strength, and just being able to have that puck on my stick even more. Protect it better," Mercer explained. "I want to keep on trying to build my two-way game. I want to be trusted defensively, but also I want to make sure I can keep trying to put the puck in the net and create some offense."
Regardless of whether Mercer plays center or wing, is put on special teams or not, the ability to be there competing for his team is what has made the first 100 games of his career special.
"Every night I want to be out there trying to help my team win," said Mercer on Friday. "It's been good for me to be out there all the time, being ready to play in those games, and it's really fun to live the experience instead of watching it there.
"So it's been a good ride and and I want to make sure I keep that going."