With limited cap space, New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald did a pretty respectable job of upgrading the depth within his forward group. While there’s probably work to be done to be labeled a Stanley Cup contender, they’re certainly in a much better place than they were a month ago.
Related: Getting to Know Devils’ Mikhail Yegorov
But no matter what acquisition(s) are made, most successful contenders have their lineup lengthened by production from guys on entry-level, or near-league minimum contracts. The Devils will certainly hope for that added boost from Arseni Gritsyuk, but there’s one name absent from most roster projections: Brian Halonen.
Halonen Flying Under the Radar
To be fair, if the Devils are able to extend Luke Hughes without moving Ondrej Palat’s contract, there doesn’t seem to be a spot for Halonen. However, injuries are inevitable for nearly every NHL team. The Devils have been plagued by them for the last two seasons, arguably the biggest reason they have underperformed their expectations.
The 6-foot-tall, 207-pound winger in Halonen should be the first man up if a winger goes down. His heavy, crash-the-net playstyle is similar to that of Nathan Bastian, whom the Devils regularly played for the last four seasons. However, Halonen’s offensive upside is much higher. In addition to consistently scoring goals around the crease, he also boasts a heavy one-timer that finds twine often.
In total, he’s scored 47 goals in his last 97 American Hockey League (AHL) contests — a pace ~71% higher than Bastian’s two AHL seasons before becoming a full-time NHLer. With Bastian not returning to the Devils, there is now more of a path for Halonen, who has played just four NHL games despite a goals-per-game pace almost twice as high as any of his Utica Comets teammates since 2023-24.
He’s someone who understands his role and what he can bring to the table in a team’s bottom-six. “I’m not like a flashy skill guy like Jack [Hughes] or [Jesper] Bratt,” Halonen told The Hockey Writers in February. “I try to get to the dirty areas and kind of play that strong game.”
While there will be other forwards in the mix for AHL call-ups, like Thomas Bordeleau and Angus Crookshank, Halonen’s game is better suited for a fourth line. Head coach Sheldon Keefe praised his confidence when he got called up for two games mid-season in 2024-25: “It’s the NHL, you know, and he’s a guy that’s trying to find his way,” Keefe said. “I think he’s a confident guy. He looks good to me out there in the practice drills, passing the puck around and shooting it well. He feels good about his game with where he’s at at the American League level. So he’s trying to enjoy every moment that he has here. It’s not an easy league to crack into. You know, opportunities kind of come and go, and it’s not always in your control – or certainly, almost never in your control. All it is (about) is how prepared you are when you get the call.”
In the event of injuries, the versatile nature of many Devils forwards can help Halonen slot into the bottom-six. Guys like Connor Brown, Evgenii Dadonov, Dawson Mercer and Stefan Noesen can move into the top-six if needed.
Halonen’s two-way contract expires following the 2025-26 season. After the Devils were the team to take a flyer on the undrafted winger in March of 2022, it would be a bummer for it to end without any sort of legitimate NHL trial run, especially after Halonen has developed nicely, increasing his AHL point production by ~49% over the past two seasons.
“Everyone knows it’s the NHL, it’s the hardest league in the world,” Halonen also told THW in February. “You can’t get down about it. There’s nothing good to come from that, you just got to keep working and be ready when the time comes.”
