It’s only early November, but New Jersey Devils‘ forward Dawson Mercer is in the midst of a slump that he has not experienced up until this point in his young career. In his first two seasons, Mercer potted 44 goals and 98 points while improving his scoring ability each year. So far this campaign, the Carbonear, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada native has scored just one goal and one point. For many players, they deal with what is called a “Sophomore Slump” after a good rookie season. For Mercer, it comes a year late, and it’s a bit of a concern for both the player and the team.
This is an important year for Mercer in multiple ways. The first is that this is the first time the Devils are in true competitive mode for a Stanley Cup, and the team needs Mercer’s offensive capabilities to reach the ultimate prize. The other is the impact on his next contract. The forward will be a restricted free agent (RFA) at season’s end, and right now, things are not looking good if he expects a pretty good pay raise from the $1.35 million per year he’s making. So what has led to this slow start, and how can Mercer get back on track? Let’s dive in.
The Reason for Mercer’s Slow Start
After watching a lot of the games so far this season, there are two reasons in my opinion the factors as to why Mercer has struggled as much as he has so far. The first is simply that he is putting a lot of pressure on himself to perform. As mentioned before, he is playing in a contract year, and he wants to perform well enough to stick around long-term in New Jersey and be paid well. Because of that, Mercer is in his head a lot more, and you can see that he’s overdoing a lot. He needs to just go back and simplify the way he plays and be more aggressive.
The other reason which goes hand-in-hand with the first is that Mercer has yet to find stability on a line so far. Mercer has played on every single line from the first to the fourth at some point this season. He has yet to build chemistry with anyone because his role seems to change each night. This comes as no surprise from head coach Lindy Ruff. He tends to change line combinations mid-games if things aren’t going well immediately. This definitely at times can hurt Mercer’s confidence. He does need to find his game, but not having a definitive role on a line is adding to his struggles.
How to Get Mercer Back on Track
So how can the 22-year-old winger/centerman get back to the production he had in his first two years? There are a couple of ways. The first thing I mentioned earlier was that Mercer needs to just simplify his game. There have been plenty of times when Mercer looks lost out there because when he tries to do everything in one shift, he ends up contributing nothing because he isn’t putting himself in the right positions on the ice. He’s overthinking and has to just get back to what he was doing the past two seasons. Letting the game come to him will have the biggest positive impact on his performance.
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The second decision that needs to happen is that Mercer needs to be on one line and stay there. He needs to build that chemistry with whomever he’s on that line with. He got put back on the team’s first line at the center role, and that led to him finally getting his first goal of the year. He ended up with his best overall performance of the year. With both Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier out for some time, this is a great opportunity for him to find his game again.
It’s still fairly early into the season, but it appears that Mercer’s sophomore slump has arrived a year late. It’s certainly not something anyone wants to see from the young forward, but that doesn’t mean that things can’t get better. If Mercer can just go back to making things uncomplicated and find chemistry with linemates on a specific line, there’s no reason why he can’t get back to what we’ve seen from him the previous two seasons. There is a lot of time left, but he needs to get going soon for his and the team’s sake.