The New Jersey Devils lost more assets than they gained on the first day of free agency. The biggest piece they lost so far is John Moore, but it was the right decision to let him leave.
John Moore left the New Jersey Devils to sign a five-year deal with the Boston Bruins. His average annual value of $2.75 million.
Honestly, it’s a very fair deal when it comes to how much Moore is getting paid. There were worries a team would come in with a ridiculous price for Moore, just because of the lack of quality defensemen on the free agency market. Add into the fact that Ryan McDonagh, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Drew Doughty will no longer become free agents next offseason, it seems like prime season to overpay an average player.
That didn’t happen. I think many Devils fans would be happy to have Moore back at $2.75 million. The problem is the term. Almost nobody wants to give Moore a five-year deal.
Moore had a lot of skill, and brought speed from the back end for the Devils. However, his decision making was not very good. He pinched at the wrong time, mishandled the puck in the offensive zone and sends passes to where they have little chance of success.
A huge problem is Moore’s giveaways against his takeaways. Yes, I know, the stat is flawed, but when paired with other stats it is telling. He started in the defensive zone half the time, yet had 31 more giveaways than takeaways.
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There are more stats that back up the argument, but there’s no need to get into every single stat while ignoring the ones that don’t make the point. That’s because there’s one major reason why you don’t want Moore on this contract. He’s be in the way for five years.
Moore will never be a top pairing defenseman. Honestly, he’s closer to a bottom pairing defenseman at this point. At 27 years old, he should be having his best seasons right now. If this is the best were going to get, then we don’t want to see the worse version.
This deal reminds me of the one the Edmonton Oilers signed Mark Fayne to in 2014. He signed for four years and $3.5 million per season. It seemed like a pretty fair deal at the time. However, as we saw the past two seasons, the Oilers regretted it very quickly. His optics made him look better than he actually was. That will hurt you in the long run.
The Devils will need to replace Moore’s production. They will sorely miss him in overtime. There are aspects of his game that helped the Devils, but outside of overtime he was never a huge reason why they won games. A team does not want to commit to that for five years.