Simon Nemec

Grade: C

2025-26 Review

The New Jersey Devils other 22-year-old defenseman is Simon Nemec. Nemec started out the season red hot, but cooled considerably and is now in an extremely interesting spot headed into the offseason.

The Slovakian defenseman scored six goals in the month of December off the back of a hat trick against Chicago. Across the first two months of the season, Nemec posted 15 points (six goals) across 25 games. However, over his last 43 games he only had 11 points.

A large reason for Nemec’s hot start was the Devils’ unsustainable shooting percentage while he was on the ice. The team shot an unworldly 11.98% with him on the ice through those first 25 games. However, when that figure finally started to regress, as the team shot 7.02% while he was on the ice for the remainder of the season, the production tanked.

Unlike Dougie Hamilton, who maintained very strong underlying metrics and impacts all season long, Nemec’s underlying metrics were mediocre during the duration of the season. The below is where Nemec ranked in different important possession metrics among 26 teammates to play at least nine games in 2025-26:

• Corsi-for percentage: 18th
• Expected goals-for percentage: 17th
• Scoring chance-for percentage: 18th
• High-danger Corsi-for percentage: 19th

Note, the above are five-on-five statistics only.

In layman’s terms, Nemec’s strong offensive outburst earlier this season was fueled by unsustainable on-ice shooting percentages. The defensive metrics are still very troublesome and the more traditional analytics, that take out shooting percentage and other volatile metrics, paint a troubling picture. According to Evolving Hockey’s goals above replacement (GAR) metrics, Nemec’s defensive metrics ranked in the league’s 18th percentile. Unlike someone like a Luke Hughes or a Dougie Hamilton, Nemec was also playing much easier minutes.

With that being said, due to the goal-scoring outburst to begin the season, Nemec’s overall on-ice impacts still ranked in the 52nd percentile. Overall, he was not unplayable by any means, however, the season as a whole was a quite average one.

2026-27 Outlook

Simon Nemec and what new general manager Sunny Mehta does with him is one of the more intriguing storylines of the offseason. Nemec is a restricted free agent and is likely commanding a steep payday. Early projections for a new deal for Nemec according to AFP Analytics are listed below:

• Long Term: Seven years, $58,108,960 ($8,301,280 annually)
• Short Term: Two years, $8,618,113.26 ($4,309,066.63 annually)

With the current landscape of the organization’s cap situation and the fact Nemec’s play throughout his 155 game NHL career has not indicated he will take a full step forward, a trade should certainly be on the table. If New Jersey can procure Nemec into a young, controllable forward they should certainly do so.

If the team does opt to keep him, a shorter term deal at a lower annual average is surely going to be the route. However, to do so, the Devils would likely have to ship out one of their other right-handed defenseman as Nemec is on the more crowded side of the Devils’ organizational defensive depth chart.

Note, the above statistics are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey.