The New Jersey Devils really need a defenseman to play on the top line. However, there are many defenseman who would actually make this team’s defense worse in the long run.
We are still a little less than two months away from July 1st. That means we have two months to dream about a future New Jersey Devils lineup that includes Erik Karlsson, Jeff Skinner, Jacob Trouba or Mitch Marner. Now, we’ve seen Ray Shero bring over a superstar before when he traded for Taylor Hall in 2016, but it’s much more likely those top of the market players go somewhere else.
There are some players who will be available this offseason who are clear traps. They are going to make a mint, but will never really deliver on that payment.
It happens every year. This especially happens with defensemen since there are so few great ones that teams are willing to overpay for mediocre ones. The last multi-year free agent deal the Devils gave to a defenseman was to Ben Lovejoy in 2016. Before that, it was John Moore. They were both… fine. They didn’t cripple the team, but they didn’t really help much either.
The Devils have very few spots available on their roster, but those open spots have to go to top-line players. They have a spot for one defenseman and re-signing one of their multiple restricted free agents. If they use that one last spot to sign yet another middle-line defenseman, this team is in the same spot.
Plus, wasting money on one of these players may crush them in the near future. They already have an albatross contract in Cory Schneider‘s (sorry Cory, you’re playing better but that contract is a lot). Adding a player getting $5 million to $7 million per season, and they don’t provide much, then it will set this team back terribly.
For this exercise, we will use the contract predictors from Evolving Wild.