Prior to 3 p.m. Wednesday, the New Jersey Devils had hope they could come out of the NHL Trade Deadline with a much brighter future. Thanks to general manager Ray Shero, that did not happen.
For more than two decades, New Jersey Devils fans knew that they had a general manager who would make trades that made them better one way or another. Lou Lamoriello never lost trades. He would sign a guy to way too much money who gave them nothing. He saw star players leave to make too much money across the Hudson River with the New York Rangers. Lamoriello didn’t make the best decisions in the draft. However, when it came to trades, the Devils won.
Ray Shero made fans think of the days of Lou. This past offseason he turn Adam Larsson into the future of the franchise in Taylor Hall. The year before, he traded two draft picks for Kyle Palmieri. He made some awesome trades to make the team younger, faster and more offensive.
Maybe that’s why Wednesday was such a let down.
Kyle Quincey was the best available defenseman on the market when he was finally traded, and he brought the team Dalton Prout. He was the eight defenseman on the Columbus Blue Jackets. Don’t know if you know this, but teams can only play six defenseman at a time. Many are saying the team got him to expose him in the expansion draft, but there has to be more than that. I think they took him so they can have someone not named Miles Wood do the fighting.
Sometime after three, the team announce it traded AHL defenseman Reece Scarlett for Shane Harper. What makes me most sad about this is when you Google Harper, some singer I never heard of comes up. Obviously, that has nothing to do with the trade, just a minor inconvenience for me.
Shero told Andrew Gross from the Record that Harper gives the team depth up front, which he was looking to add. Still, trading a 23 year old AHL defenseman for a 28 year old AHL forward doesn’t seem like the best move for the future.
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Then there is the biggest swing-and-miss of the day. Shero sent P.A. Parenteau to the Nashville Predators for their 6th round pick this year. That’s it? There has to be a prospect around here somewhere, right?
Nope.
The team turned their only good secondary scoring option into a draft pick that, if they even make it to the NHL, it is going to take half a decade to do so. If that was the return, why not just try and re-sign Parenteau?
One day a legacy does not make. Shero did very well at last year’s Trade Deadline. He has been killing it in the offseason trades. Wednesday was a major loss for the Devils. Shero needs to do work this offseason to get back in the fans’ good graces. With this team, one good move can do that.