At this point I'm against the idea of adding more veteran guys.
The Devils have enough depth as is where, when fully healthy, two of Zetterlund, Johnsson, McLeod, Bastian and Boqvist will have to be left out of the lineup at any given night.
To say nothing of Holtz, Thompson and Foote looking to battle their way onto the roster.
Then there's the cap issue.
Once Zetterlund's cap is added to the roster, any activation of Bernier and Wood would put the Devils over the limit.

As for the lines, I think it's borderline criminal to have McLeod in the lineup while Johnsson is buried.
It really should be the other way around in my opinion.

For a 4th line, if I moved Boqvist there, McLeod could still take face-offs and play the heavy grinding, fore-checking style as we have seen from that line.
I think ultimately, Wood - Boqvist - McLeod may be more effective than Wood - McLeod - Bastian in that at least we would be able to maintain some possession.

Either, its just an idea.

As for the cap, I think we will be okay since Bernier isn't going to play this year. He needed two hip surgeries and as only gotten one (typically 6 month recovery time).

After his early struggles breaking into NHL, I always thought McLeod would be more suited to RW at this level. Reduces the responsibility, but leverages his size, speed, physicality ... It's certainly worth a look imo. Ruff will do his usual mixing of lines throughout the season, so this could be a very likely scenario for at least a few games.

No I get that, the chances of Bernier getting activated at some point aren't zero however.
I think with the depth the Devils have at forward (and possibly at D) I just don't think that there's any justifiable reason to bring another guy in.

I don't see how the Devils cannot start Mcleod every night. He is one of their main penalty kill guys and best faceoff guy.

Hischier/ Hughes/ Haula/ Mcleod down the middle, only spots open are on the wings.

I couldn't disagree more, McLeod really shouldn't have a bigger role than as a 13-14th forward in the NHL.

Most nights the Devils got caved in with him on the ice at 5v5 and the PK was mediocre at best, the Devils were worse off with McLeod despite him winning more faceoffs than not.
This is due to the fact that faceoffs truly don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
On average they have no power to predict whether a goal is scored for or against in any given sequence, whereas being able to successfully breakout from a d zone possession and transition the puck up the ice does matter.

If the McLeod-Johnsson tradeoff is a substantially lowered faceoff percentage in exchange for an overall more talented and valuable player drawing into the lineup, I'm going with Johnsson everytime.
The same goes for any McLeod-Boqvist tradeoff, Boqvist is more talented in every valuable aspect of the game (aside from straight-line speed) and should always be picked ahead of McLeod when available.

Losing a faceoff in your own zone does lead to a higher probability of getting scored upon. And also, this is one of those areas where “stats” can be misleading. When you are baking all situations, all teams into one big data cake, it’s understanding how some arrive at that conclusion.

But if you account for teams play style, game situation, and zone, you would find the correlations of FO% to GF% becomes meaningful.

Another way to look at it: Say I offer you a challenge in a coin-flip contest. We will flip 1,000 times and if you win 67% or more, I will pay you $1,000. If you win 33% or less, you pay me $1,000. Fair? Since the probability of one getting 667 wins out of 1000 flips is about one-septillion-to-one. What if I offered the same deal, with only 3 flips, we would each have 50/50 chance of losing $1000.