NEWARK, N.J. — Dawson Mercer took control of his hockey path early, and priority No. 1 was to make it to the NHL as quickly as possible. That mindset guided him when he faced a difficult choice as a teenager: play major junior hockey or go to a U.S. college and compete at the NCAA level.
By the time he was a 14-year-old weighing his options, Mercer had already left the comfort of his Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, home to go to prep school in Sherbrooke, Quebec. The forward was good enough to play in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League as a 15-year-old, but doing so would make him ineligible for NCAA competition.
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Mercer’s parents, Craig and Charlotte, liked the idea of him taking care of his education, and his prep school put plenty of focus on college. But he wanted to play major junior, the highest level available to him, and liked the game-heavy schedule.
“I went away to play hockey, so I want to play hockey now,” Craig remembers his son saying. “I want to play in the Q to develop.”
The Mercer parents let their oldest son make his own decision, though they set one condition: He had to finish high school, then enroll in college courses at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He followed through, taking online classes while with Drummondville and, after a trade in 2020, Chicoutimi. All the while, his well-rounded game made him a reliable on-ice presence, and Team Canada selected him twice for its World Junior Championship roster.
“Even though he started as a 13th forward (at world juniors), he was never the guy who had the least ice time up front,” said Yanick Jean, Mercer’s coach and general manager in Chicoutimi. “He would always find a way to get more ice time by gaining trust from the coaching staff.”
The decision to forgo college hockey paid off in the way that mattered most to Mercer: putting himself in a position to make the NHL as fast as possible. New Jersey selected him 18th overall in 2020, and he made his NHL debut a year later. He hasn’t left the Devils’ lineup since, playing in each of the club’s past 234 games, good for the 11th-longest active iron-man streak.
Though New Jersey has had a disappointing season and Mercer’s scoring numbers are down from a 27-goal in 2022-23, the 22-year-old looks like a player the organization will be able to count on for years to come. The Devils view him as part of their core, and his upbeat personality shines wherever he goes. He speaks with an authentic appreciation for the journey that’s taken him across the globe — from Newfoundland to world championships to sold-out arenas in NHL playoff games — but none of it deters his thirst for more.
“I just want to make sure that when I’m finished, I’m pretty happy when I look back,” he said.
Mercer, who plays with a high motor and willingness to fight for goals in front of opponents’ nets, comes from a hockey family. Craig once had a tryout with the Leafs’ AHL team when it was based in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Dawson’s uncle, Bo Bennett, is a coach and trainer in Bay Roberts. Dawson’s younger brother, 19-year-old Riley, is a steady goaltender with Drummondville, and his sister, Jessica, is a defenseman committed to play at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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With Dawson at forward, the Mercer household has all three positions covered.
“It helped both of us: having him to shoot and for him to have someone to shoot at,” Riley said.
Playing in the NHL was Mercer’s childhood dream, and he grew up admiring Patrice Bergeron’s two-way excellence for the Bruins. But the sport is only one element of his life, which is one of the biggest lessons Riley has taken from his older brother.
“It’s a bit contradicting, but (he doesn’t) just focus on hockey,” Riley said. “I think it’s also important to get away and enjoy everything else.”
When home in Newfoundland for the summer, he spends time swimming and riding his dirt bike. He and Riley go on annual salmon fishing trips, recently to the Exploits River about four hours from Bay Roberts. On the trips, also attended by two uncles and a cousin, they sleep in tents and spend the days talking and telling stories. It’s fun, Riley believes, to get away from their hockey-centric lives.
Dawson is also a man of projects. Growing up, he and Riley built a treehouse, and they made a wooden path through the woods behind the house. Their latest mission is building a shed, approximately 12 feet by 14 feet, made from wooden pallets. They’ve completed the walls and floor but need help finishing the roof. That’ll be a task for this summer.
“Everything about Dawson when he comes home is busy, busy, busy,” Craig said. “He’s back and forth to (St. John’s), trying to get as many skates as he can. He’s trying to do the hockey piece around other things he wants to enjoy.”
As an NHLer, Mercer has plenty of money to hire someone to make his shed. But where’s the fun in that? He likes to create, and Bennett refers to him as a pallet engineer.
“He’s just meticulous in everything he does,” he said. “This is what he’s like with his pallet shed. And every board has to align perfectly because that’s the way he does s—.”
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That meticulousness and willingness to work has long been present in his hockey game, too. That, mixed with his skill and hockey sense, helped him catch Drummondville’s eye as a teenager going into the QMJHL draft. While playing there, he lived with former NHLer Denis Gauthier, a team consultant with the Voltigeurs. Mercer found him to be a great mentor, someone who could help him with everything from how to eat to the broader hockey lifestyle. (The food talk went both ways. Mercer introduced Gauthier to his beloved Newfoundland bologna, a staple of the cuisine back home.)
Gauthier calls Mercer “a bubbly kid in a man’s body.” He became close to the entire host family, playing outside and jumping on the trampoline with Gauthier’s three kids. The day that Drummondville traded him to Chicoutimi was difficult for all of them.
“Crying kids, crying mom, and I held it back,” Gauthier said, adding that Mercer has kept in touch with the family as his career has progressed. “He felt like one of my kids.”
On the ice, he made quick fans of his coaches.
“If you had 20 Dawson Mercers you wouldn’t need coaches,” said Steve Hartley, who coached him in Drummondville.
Added Jean, the Chicoutimi coach and GM: “His ability to play on his edge, to hold onto the puck, to always bring the pace of the game to his speed, his work ethic (stood out). He would always be all out every shift. He was special.”
That has made him a fixture in the Devils’ lineup and a clear drafting win for the front office. Though selected in the middle of the first round, he’s fourth in goals and fifth in points among his 2020 draft classmates. Only Alexis Lafrenière (No. 1) and Tim Stützle (No. 3) have played more games than Mercer, and both debuted a year earlier. He attributes that both to taking care of his body and to making sure he’s not in dangerous positions during play.
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“We used to nickname him ‘The Matrix,’” Nelson said. “He can turn himself in these crazy bendy shapes and avoid serious contact.”
After making the playoffs and upending the rival Rangers in the first round last season, the Devils have taken a step back. General manager Tom Fitzgerald fired coach Lindy Ruff this month, and he sold at the deadline, sending Colin Miller and leading goal scorer Tyler Toffoli to Winnipeg. It’s been a long year, Mercer acknowledges, but he’s still had fun trying to get better.
Mercer’s output has dipped, much like the rest of the Devils. He logged 57 points in 2022-23, but this year has 19 goals and 30 points this year. Riley talks to him almost every day, and he credits his older brother with keeping a level head.
“You feel like some games when you come out and feel like you’re playing great and then you don’t have anything to show for it,” Dawson said. “Then there are times where it’s the opposite. You go through those times as a player. The mindset is just to stay in the present.”
Interim coach Travis Green said this week that the Devils’ group of defensemen — which has been without the injured Dougie Hamiliton most of the year — has struggled to get pucks to the net this season. That, he thinks, has contributed to Mercer scoring less, since many of his goals come in the dirty areas in front of the net.
“He’s still learning,” Green said. “Merce has a chance to be a really good player in this league as long as he continues to be that tenacious gritty player that we’ve seen through his first few years in the league.”
For those reasons, the Devils like him. He’s still developing and is someone Fitzgerald has resisted including in trade talks, even while pursuing big-name players. The organization won’t part with him easily.
That’s good news for Mercer, a pending restricted free agent. New Jersey is where he wants to be, and the Devils’ down year hasn’t deterred his hope for the future.
“I’ve loved it ever since the day I got here,” he said. “It’s a young group, a lot of players here that I started with, and it’s fun to spend all these years with them — and more to come.”
(Top photo of Dawson Mercer: Rich Graessle / NHLI via Getty Images)
