Zacha started the first game last season as #1C with Hall and Palmieri. In fact, he lead our forwards in icetime that game, getting a minute and a half more than Hall did (
Colorado Avalanche at New Jersey Devils Box Score — October 7, 2017 | Hockey-Reference.com) Nico started with Johansson and Stafford -
https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/devils-vs-avalanche-season-home-opener-2-00pm-msg.2395087/).
As for Nico's "slow" start last year, he had 7 points in his first 8 games and 15 points in his first 19 games? Unless you're talking specifically about the first 5 games of the season, in which Hischier had 2 points in 5 games. In which case, Zacha also had 2 points in 5 games playing with Hallmieri soooooo I'm unclear as to what the point is here.
I've been one of Zacha's biggest supporters but this revisionist history is just flat out factually incorrect. Zacha was *given* the #1C spot out of camp in 2017 and within two weeks he lost it to an 18 year old who had never played a professional hockey game, plain and simple.
If you're suggesting that a team just let this 20 year old flounder around the most important position on the team for a quarter of the season just to be fair to him, that's just unreasonable. Zacha had his shot and blew it, so someone in came in and did his job for him.
The problem with Zacha is that in his D+2 season he had nothing to learn in juniors but was clearly not ready for the NHL. The coaching kept him up and staff juggled him around. They never gave him a concrete role or identity, something he still hasn't found.