I recently took a look at some internal upgrades for the Devils. Since we’re addressing defense today, we’ll apply those internal upgrades and work around them. To start, there’s one major hole left in this defense assuming we’re operating with
LD RD
Vatanen
Butcher Severson
Mueller Lovejoy
Greene
Fortunately for the New Jersey Devils, John Hynes has shown a willingness to play defensemen offhand as we saw last year with Mirco Mueller rather frequently. Knowing this means that looking at RD and LD UFA’s is realistic.
Before we get into this, I’ll explain my tiers. I’m breaking what I believe are realistic UFA options for the Devils into tiers based off contract projections from Matt Cane, @Cane_Matt on twitter. Numbers will come from Corsica.Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, and Viz’s from Bill Comeau (@billius27).
Using @billius27’s viz of @CMhockey66’s GAR data lets take a look at current Devils D and possible UFA targets. pic.twitter.com/U7CcjuXBz1
— Tyler Kelley (@DocKelley41) May 14, 2018
So let’s get started. First we’ll take a look at a Viz from Bill using Chace McCallum’s GAR data. GAR is an interesting tool that I think provides a good overall picture of a player and what they do and do not bring to the table.