It hasn’t been discussed much this season, but the San Jose Sharks have not extended Erik Karlsson. There’s reason to believe the New Jersey Devils could bring him in to fix this defense.
The New Jersey Devils are in a bad way this season. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. It started just before game number one, when Jesper Bratt broke his jaw in practice days before he was scheduled to play in front of his home Swedish crowd. It continued with the terrible play of Cory Schneider and Keith Kinkaid. It continued even more with Taylor Hall‘s long mysterious injury, and hit a peak on Tuesday when a mostly AHL roster went into Calgary and allowed nine goals.
That’s why it’s time to go for some pipe dreams people. The number one pipe dream for this New Jersey Devils team is signing Erik Karlsson as a free agent. Is it likely to happen? No, of course not. However, it’s far from impossible.
Erik Karlsson transforms this Devils team overnight. He’s the very best free agent on the market, and surprisingly we haven’t heard the teams that will be going after him in the offseason. It’s odd, really. Last season, even with John Tavares expressing interest to return to the New York Islanders, we heard about teams saying they thought they could pry him away, and he eventually went to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Luckily, there aren’t any NHL teams in Sweden, so we don’t have to worry about Karlsson going home. So, what are some of the reasons the Devils could bring in Karlsson for the long term?
1. Money
We start with the obvious. The New Jersey Devils have $29 million in cap space next season. They have $45 million in cap space in 2020. That’s without the cap going up, which is expected to $3-$5 million per season to the cap. The Devils could have as much as $55 million in cap space in 2020.
That means the Devils could give Nico Hischier and Taylor Hall $4 million raises a piece, giving them $40 million in space. They can re-sign restricted free agents Will Butcher, Connor Carrick, Joey Anderson, Jesper Bratt, Pavel Zacha, John Quenneville and Mackenzie Blackwood for somewhere in the $17 million range. That leaves them with $23 million to play with, and every single player is signed. They can offer Karlsson $13 million per season knowing they get an extra $5 million the next season when Travis Zajac‘s deal is up.
There is more than enough money to sign Karlsson, and possibly even another really good second-line wing or center. Not many teams can claim this kind of cap flexibility for years to come. The Devils can outspend just about anyone.