I am pretty happy for the guy too. He was a good pick by us and really took a long time to cook, hopefully he parley this year into a nice contract for himself. If anything we didn't need to bring in Schmidt during that time but that is likely a Maurice thing then anything else. We don't bring in Schmidt we probably have one of Chisholm/Kova around right now. But I don't think that translate into him playing the way he is with the Devils right now. I think being thrown into the crucible of a terrible Montreal team and learning the NHL game the hard way was way more experience then he would have gotten here
I am still trying to put my finger on what the problem is with what happened there. So far Stanley seems to be maturing nicely and if he is on that same trajectory then we can expect good things this year and next from the guy. Kova and him are a year apart.
The only thing I can think of is that the Jets really thought they were in a position of contention after the Covid year, in which they should have rolled over Montreal to get to Vegas. Samberg was on his way, and I think the Jets might have had something with Samberg and Kovacevic, I remember there was some fanfare around those 2, but the Jets never have promoted 2 young players simultaneously. The closest was Morrissey-Trouba, and Trouba was already established by then. Schmidt turned oout to be a pretty good mentor to Samberg, I think at one point they were the highest rated d-pairing last year. And Schmidt had a certain value to a maturing team, as the guy who keep the room loose. Something Wheeler, I imagine, did not do.
The decision to waive him to keep Capobianco will always linger, but it's done. Kovacevic didn't exactly set the league on fire in Montreal, like you said, it was a trial by fire. Maybe Ryan Mc Gill is helping him out. Devils probably have the biggest defense in the league on paper. Only Hughes under 200, so it might just be a systematic fit, that Keefe tried to establish in Toronto. Not sure if Kovacevic would have had the same results here, or would be a fit for Arniel/Chynoweth. We'll never know, but makes for a good rant the better Kovacevic plays.