The 2025-26 season for the New Jersey Devils is in the books, and the time has come to shift our attention from what’s going on on the ice to off the ice.
New general manager Sunny Mehta has plenty of business to handle this summer as he inherits a talented, but flawed roster from Tom Fitzgerald. The Devils have several restricted free agents that need to be addressed, and in the first part of our annual series where we profile the pending RFAs and UFAs on the roster, we will begin with Arseny Gritsyuk.
Arseny Gritsyuk is a 25 year old winger who was drafted in the 5th round way back in 2019. The former 129th overall selection was one of Ray Shero’s final draft picks as an NHL general manager.
Like many Russian prospects before him, Gritsyuk continued his development in his homeland, playing for clubs such as Omskie Yastreby, Izhevsk Izhstal Ustinov, and Novokuznetsk Metallurg before winding up with Omsk Avangard of the KHL for three seasons. While there, he represented the Russian Olympic Committee in the Olympics in 2022, winning a silver medal. He would play two more seasons with SKA St. Petersburg before finally making his way to the NHL prior to the 2025-26 season. He scored 68 goals and added 84 assists in 216 KHL games over five seasons.
Gritsyuk is represented by agent Shumi Babaev of the Shumi Agency. According to PuckPedia, he has 4 other NHL clients aside from Gritsyuk, with the most notable ones being Penguins winger Yegor Chinakhov and Avalanche center (and former Devils draft selection) Zakhar Bardakov among them.
Gritsyuk has only played one season in New Jersey, but its safe to say he’s made a good first impression and he’s someone Devils fans want to see more of moving forward.
Gritsyuk started out this season on the Devils fourth line, but with his responsible two-way play, high hockey IQ, and a sometimes lethal shot, he gradually earned more ice time. He eventually settled into a third line role for the majority of the season and earned ice time on the second power play unit.
After tallying a few assists over his first few NHL games, Gritsyuk scored his first career NHL goal in the Devils 4-1 win over the Wild back on October 22. And it was a snipe.
Unfortunately for Gritsyuk, he was like many Devils players this season who just went ice cold offensively in the middle of the campaign. He did rebound post-Olympic break with 4 goals and 4 assists before a shoulder injury ended his season. All in all, he finished his rookie campaign with 13 goals and 18 assists in 66 games. His 31 points placed him 13th among all rookies, and while he won’t win the Calder Trophy, he may wind up earning a few down ballot votes as recognition for the campaign he had.
Now that the season is in the rear-view mirror though and looking back on it, I think there’s a lot to like when it comes to Gritsyuk’s game. He’s a much better defensive forward than I think anyone could’ve hoped for. He’s a good skater. He gets in there on the forecheck. And of course, he has one of the better shots on the team.
He also now has a season’s worth of NHL experience under his belt, which is key. We know what his floor is. He can carve out a role as a defensively responsible bottom six winger who can drive offense. But I think he’s versatile enough as a player where he could play anywhere in the lineup and not look out of place. He got some time with Jack Hughes post-Olympics and looked fine, but I could see him fitting in with Nico Hischier as his wingman as well. Chris alluded to this when he said Gritsyuk deserved a bigger role, and I think one could argue he was just as good as Timo Meier or Dawson Mercer were this past season, if not better.
Gritsyuk is also willing to fight everybody to protect Jack Hughes, which you love to see.
Gritsyuk’s ELC concluded at the end of this Devils season. He will have arbitration rights as a pending RFA, assuming the Devils qualify him (spoiler alert: they will). The Devils will maintain his NHL rights until he becomes eligible for UFA following the 2027-28 season.
This is a difficult question to answer, as there are a lot of unknowns moving forward.
We don’t know if Sheldon Keefe will be back as the coach, nor do we know who Sunny Mehta is planning on keeping from the roster he inherited. We also don’t know how Mehta will value Gritsyuk, as we just have the one NHL season under his belt to go off of. And even assuming Gritsyuk is back, what will his role be? Will he be shoehorned into the Top Six? Will he continue his third line role alongside Cody Glass? Can he earn more time on the power play unit?
That said, I could see Gritsyuk being better in his second full NHL season now that he’s been around the league once. He’s now familiar with the speed at which the NHL game is played. He knows he’ll have to get stronger to get to those tougher areas of the ice more consistently. The defensive game is already there for him, but the next step for him as a goal scorer will be picking up on those little nuances and creating separation to get his shot off.
I don’t know what his ceiling will ultimately be as an NHL player, but I do think he has the potential to be a Top-Six caliber winger who scores 20-25 goals a season and contributes around 50 points.
My natural inclination was to compare Gritsyuk’s rookie NHL season to the rookie season of other players who played multiple seasons in Russia and debuted in their 20s. But I also don’t think you can really compare Gritsyuk to Kirill Kaprizov or Artemi Panarin. Both of them had significantly better rookie campaigns than Gritsyuk did, and both have stood the test of time as elite-level NHL wingers. I’d be thrilled if Gritsyuk was half the offensive force that they are.
The next player that came to mind was a former Devils draft pick out of Belarus that we should all be familiar with in Yegor Sharangovich. But it’s another imperfect comparison.
Yes, they do share some similarities as players. Sharangovich is a little taller but they have similar frames as players. They both possess what can be termed a lethal shot. And when their shot is going well, they can pump in goals as a reliable source of secondary offense.