5 Reasons New Jersey Devils Make Sense For Erik Karlsson
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.
2. Lead A Young Defensive Core
The New Jersey Devils don’t have a very good defense, but they have some of the most intriguing defensive prospects out there. There’s the obvious Ty Smith, who’s one of the best young defensemen not in the NHL. Reilly Walsh might stay at Harvard, but if Karlsson decides to sign with the Devils, Walsh might want to get in on this. Jeremy Davies is also Devils property, and he’s currently in the hunt for the Hobey Baker Award with Northeastern University. He’s already 22 years old, so he might be looking to make the jump to the NHL soon.
Those are just the defenseman not on the Devils now. Sami Vatanen feels like he’s older than he is. Vatanen is just 27 years old. He’s been good since he was traded from the Anaheim Ducks, and anchored the defense last season to the playoffs. He did what he could this season, but it’s clear he needs someone to take that number one spot from him.
Damon Severson is 24 years old. Think about that. He’s not even old enough to get a discount on his car insurance (unless he calls Geico apparently). He looks like a second-line anchor already, and took a significant jump this season.
Karlsson has to see that this defense may look bad now, but first line Andy Greene ends when he joins the team, and there’s enough here that he could be surrounded by the same defensive core for the rest of his career. That’s got to be important for a player like him. On top of that, if he doesn’t fit with, say, Vatanen who would switch sides, they could try him out with Ty Smith or Damon Severson. There are a plethora of combinations for him.
3. Abilty To Play Under The Radar
After playing under the microscope that is Ottawa for most of his career, it must be nice for Karlsson to play in San Jose where he can just focus on hockey. There’s not a constant poking and prodding when he has one bad night. There’s no backpage headlines about his relationship with his wife. The Twitter trolls don’t tag him calling him bad names. It’s nice and easy.
In New Jersey, Karlsson would get that same space, but with New York accessibility. All those huge Canadian companies that want him to sponsor things? They likely have a hub in New York City. Easy access for friends and family? The Big Apple gets you just about anywhere.
Yet, he doesn’t have to deal with the New York media. The Devils have been awful for most of the season, but the worst they’ve been given comes from bloggers like us, and that doesn’t affect players. The reporters don’t try and get under these players skins like you might see in Edmonton, Toronto or New York.
He just gets to play his game, raise a couple Stanley Cups and eventually make the Hall of Fame. He might even want to go in as a Senator. That’s fine, as long as he’s raising the Cup in the Prudential Center.
4. He’s Arguably A Final Piece
Here’s the thing, this one is hard to convince after this season, but there’s an argument to be made. The Devils fell off the face of the Earth almost immediately, and never really got their mojo back, even though they had Mojo back. The goalies could not stop anything, the defense took a step in the wrong direction, and Taylor Hall couldn’t score on every possession. Things just didn’t click. Yet, when you look at this team, they don’t need a major overhaul.
If the Devils get a top-two pick, then boom they have their second line center. Whether it’s Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko, that player is good enough to play on the second line immediately. That puts Pavel Zacha as a permanent fourth-line center. That takes the pressure off of him, and allows him to blossom.
Adding Karlsson fixes the defense immediately. Then you have Severson, Vatanen, Butcher, Smith and Greene as the other five for this season, and possibly re-signing Connor Carrick for depth. The offense could replace Marcus Johansson with Jesper Boqvist or a low-cost option in free agency (not super low cost, but someone in the $4 million range). Let’s say it’s Boqvist, then the offense looks like this:
Hall-Hischier-Bratt
Boqvist-Hughes-Palmieri
Wood-Zajac-Coleman
McLeod/Bastian-Zacha-Anderson/Quenneville/Rooney
So, not only does the lineup look full, but they even have bottom-six depth. If one player goes down, then it won’t fall apart. That’s how the team wasn’t built this season, and that’s why we are where we are.
Also, Cory Schneider and Mackenzie Blackwood are playing much better. Karlsson will see he has someone who can make a save behind him, something the Devils didn’t have earlier in the season.
5. Metropolitan Division There For The Taking
The Metropolitan Division was once the scariest division in the NHL. Having Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin in the same division does that. However, while they are both still among the greats, their hammer lock on the division no longer exists. Unlike the Atlantic Division, there’s no clear leader for years to come, and there’s a lot of question marks surrounding the futures of the Islanders, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Flyers and Rangers. Five of the seven opponents could be decent or awful for years to come, while the stars on the other two are getting old (even if it doesn’t appear so yet).
If the Devils get Karlsson, re-sign Hall, and some of these young players progress like they appear they will, then this could be a time where the Devils make the playoffs every season.
Honestly, Karlsson is a pipe dream, and it’s less than a five percent chance it happens. However, that’s not nothing. GM Ray Shero has a clear plan, and despite all the losing it feels like superstar Taylor Hall is on board with the plan. Five years of tanking would not be a plan he would sign off on, so we have to believe Shero thinks they’re close.
Karlsson is the type of player Shero would want to sign. He doesn’t want the players that cost $7 million, but you regret it after a year. He will pay huge money for proven superstars, and he will pay small amounts for high upside guys. Karlsson is the superstar that changes the Devils forever. This may be a pipe dream, but we’ve seen pipe dreams happen before.