"He can give us some scoring. He gave us some scoring at camp so it's something we want to look at."
Stepping into the lineup on Sunday poses a challenge for Merkley, moving from the taxi squad into game action.
"It's tough skating with three guys, but we got into some practices and been battling hard and trying to stay in shape, be ready to go and get the call," Markley stated.
He was also asked what success would look like for him tomorrow.
"I think just getting involved for a check, being a pit bull, as I said earlier in the camp and getting them the puck, creating chances just doing all the little things right," Merkley noted. "Being good in the D zone and just play hard the whole time."
MORE SHOTS NEEDED
Ruff was also asked about the low shot totals of some of his forwards, Jesper Boqvist (who was assigned to the taxi squad this morning) with only two shots while Kuokkanen and Andreas Johnsson had only one each.
"We are passing up chances. Let's use Kuokkanen as an example, last game he had it at the bottom of the circle but didn't shoot. Looked for something better. Attack the net from tough angles. Attack the net on wraparounds. We're getting too cute. We need to go inside, we need someone to go there," said Ruff.
"We've passed up opportunities to get pucks in the paint, get pucks on the goaltender."
NO CHANGES ON BLUELINE EXPECTED
The Devils aren't expected to make any changes on the blueline, where they've had the following lineup for the past four games:
Murray - Subban
Kulikov - Severson
Smith - Tennyson
Normally, the third pairing is where a team might be most inclined to make a change, with Connor Carrick and Will Butcher waiting in the wings, but for the Devils, their third pairing has been dynamite this season offensively. Smith has a point in each of his first four games, the first Devils blueliner to ever do so to start a career. Tennyson leads the team with a +6 rating, while Smith is +4 and tied for second on the squad.
"I think he's played well. There are some areas defensively, some of his defensive decisions, that he'll get better at. I thought as the game went on he really started to feel more comfortable to make more plays," Ruff said of Smith's performance against the Islanders.
As for Tennyson, while the plus/minus stat isn't always the best indicator, it's one not to be ignored.
"The only way to get to +6 is to be on for a lot of goals for," noted Ruff. "He's been on for almost all our even strength goals for. Sometimes the stat is misleading. He's been playing well, he's doing a good job getting pucks to the net which leads to the goals for."
