Devils News

Devils Recall AHL Leading Goal Scorer

Graeme Clarke scored 24 goals in 64 American Hockey League games this season.

Published

1 month ago

April 11, 2024

The New Jersey Devils announced on Wednesday afternoon that they’ve recalled forward Graeme Clark from the American Hockey League.

In a corresponding move, New Jersey reassigned forward Brian Halonen to the Utica Comets.

With Jack Hughes missing from the Devils’ lineup for the remaining three games of the season, the Devils are looking for a boost on offense.

The only way to obtain said boost is internally, thus, Graeme Clarke will join the Devils in Toronto.

The Devils’ leading AHL scorer potted 24 goals in 64 games this season. Clarke has seven more goals than the next leading goal scorer in Utica, Ryan Schmelzer.

This is the second time the Devils recalled Clarke this season.

The 22-year-old forward made his NHL debut on Jan. 6th against the Vancouver Canucks. Clarke totaled 9:32 of time on ice over 15 shifts in his first NHL game. He threw one hit and finished as a plus-one.

Devils interim head coach Travis Green was asked following Tuesday’s loss if we would see any cusp NHLers get a look in the lineup after New Jersey was mathematically eliminated from the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Yet, Green pushed back a little bit on the idea.

“We’ve been giving some guys some looks. [Shane] Bowers was playing with Nico Hischier tonight. We had Nolan Foote in the lineup,” Green said. “We’ve been putting lots of guys into the lineup right now. I don’t know how much more we could do as far as giving looks. We have a lot of bodies out of the lineup and a lot of people playing who might not have been in our original lineup from the beginning of the season.”

Perhaps, New Jersey’s management wants to see what they have in their top forward prospect ahead of next season before they make any roster decisions this summer.

The Devils hit the ice for morning skate later today at 11:30 A.M. We should get some indication of whether or not Clarke will skate in his second-ever NHL game Thursday night.