New Jersey Devils: Finding Value In NHL Free Agency

Winning the lottery was just the beginning of a big offseason for the New Jersey Devils. The Devils will be heading into the 2019 free agency period with over $30 million in cap space needing to re-sign Will Butcher, Connor Carrick, Pavel Zacha, and Stefan Noesen among other smaller pieces. Butcher and Zacha should command the most money in that group, but I doubt they end up taking up more than $8 million total.

Taylor Hall and Nico Hischier extensions loom as well, so while there’s plenty of cap to go around right now those extensions have to factor in going forward.  Taylor Hall will likely see an extension similar to what we saw Mark Stone get and I’d expect Nico Hischier to get one similar to William Nylander‘s deal.

Knowing all of this I created a fictional free agency budget for the Devils and Ray Shero this offseason and posed the question to my twitter.  Using @EvolvingWilds contract projections and a maximum limit of $14 million, which unrestricted free agents would you choose to target?

Before we get started I strongly encourage you to check out EvolvingHockey.com.  The site is an absolute gold mine of data and is where we’ll get our information from for this.

I received a ton of answers and it was fun so now it’s time to talk about the answers, the good and the bad, and then what I think the best course of action is with regard to adding as much talent within this artificial budget.

To roughly figure out the value a player could add given their projected cap hit I used both Evolving Wild’s contract projections and their GAR data.  I took the past three years of GAR data for each player mentioned and determined a rough value provided given that contract for each player.

Let’s start with one of the more common replies.

Jordan Eberle

Jordan Eberle at $6.05m AAV for 7 years.  That contract may not seem that bad and Eberle has shown he can put up point and teams are certainly willing to pay for points.  However, over the past three years Eberle totaled 11.9 GAR, that’s a low total for a three-year period and towards the bottom of the list of all the players discussed.  Whether you like GAR as a statistic or not it’s generally not smart signing a one dimensional 29 year old winger for 7 years.

Alex Edler

Alex Edler was brought up a few times and at $5.85 million AAV for 3 years I cannot stress it enough that the Devils need to stay away from Edler.  Think Karl Alzner here.  A “stay at home” (that just means he’s not offensively talented enough) coming in at nearly $6m when he’s already over 30 Is a player to avoid.

No matter how many minutes he can eat up it doesn’t matter if your team isn’t better with you on the ice for those minutes.

Edler gets a huge Do Not Sign from me.

Tyler Myers

Myers is projected at $6.16m AAV over 7 years and is another player the Devils need to avoid.  Don’t let his size fool you because Myers is not a physical defensemen.  I’ve seen Myers name thrown around a lot on Twitter for the Devils, but he’s a less effective and more expensive Damon Severson.  Myers actually has a negative GAR over the past three years.  That’s not the kind of player you want to be tying up 7 years and over $6m a year on.

Wayne Simmonds

Last but certainly not least on the player to avoid list is Wayne Simmonds.  Simmonds projects at $5.04m AAV for 5 years and is also already over 30.  While you may think the Devils need a big scoring winger, Simmonds does not fit that bill.

Simmonds strikes me as this years James Neal.  Power forwards like Simmoonds tend to have issues over the age of 30, and we’ve already seen his production taper off.  I’d say it’s a tie atop my players to avoid list between Myers and Simmonds.

Finding the Value

The three most valuable players mentioned were Joonas Donskoi, Mats Zuccarello, and Jake Gardiner.  I assume Donskoi and Gardiner may surprise many, but it was Zuccarello who surprised me the most given his contract projection.

Let’s start with Donskoi.

Projected at $2.8 million AAV over 3 years, Donskoi presents incredible value.  He’s certainly not the flashy name people may want, but he is incredibly solid.  He can produce in the Devils middle six and is a right handed shot which the Devils definitely need.  Given his contract I think the Devils could push it up to 3-3.5 to try to help guarantee a signing and he’d still provide great value.

Donskoi’s GAR/82 was higher than forwards like Richard Panik, Michael Ferland, Ryan Dzingel, and Jordan Eberle and his projected contract is well below all of theirs.  Donskoi seems like a no brainer signing in any scenario.

The next most valuable signing was Mats Zuccarello.

Projected to sign at a $6.2 million AAV over 4 years this was a little bit of a surprise to me.  At 31 years old his age is a bit of a concern but his GAR/82 was 2nd of all forwards discussed at 35.7.  That’s behind only Jeff Skinner and ahead of Artemi Panarin.  Zuccarello could logically slide in on the 2nd line and would open up the potential of having Zuccarello and Palmieri flanking Jack Hughes while the Hall-Hischier-Bratt line could be reunited.  Seems like a pretty lethal top six to me.

Last and certainly not least is Jake Gardiner.

Projected at a $6.94 million AAV over 7 years that price tag may seem like he wouldn’t provide a ton of value, but Gardiner remains an underrated defenseman.  Gardiner had the 3rd total highest GAR/82 of all players I looked at behind only Erik Karlsson and Jeff Skinner.

He certainly fits a need for the Devils as their only puck moving defensemen currently are Damon Severson and Will Butcher.  Gardiner is the type of player that would have a major impact for the Devils. Pushing Andy Greene off the top pair and into a more fitting 3rd pair role would be huge for the Devils.  Adding a partner like Gardiner for Severson or Vatanen would also provide a massive boost for both.

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People have voiced concerns and it seems like he fell out of favor in Toronto which is expected with talented offensive defensemen like Gardiner.  People tend to zero in on one mistake rather than looking at his overall impact which is very impressive.

Given the budget constraints I set the Devils couldn’t sign both Zuccarello and Gardiner but would rather have to sign Donskoi and Zuccarello or Donskoi and Gardiner to provide the most value.

Either scenario combined with drafting 1OA would give the Devils an automatic offseason A in my book and it all depends on how they project their own players.  If the Devils believe that Jesper Boqvist is ready to play in the top 9 this year, then signing Donskoii and Gardiner would make the most sense.

However, if they’re comfortable going forward with Butcher, Ty Smith, and Andy Greene as their LD then signing Zuccarello and Donskoi may make the most sense.

What are your thoughts?  Feel free to join the discussion in the comment section or on Twitter @DocKelley4.

And again a major thank you to Luke and Josh over at Evolving Wild/Evolving Hockey for the amazing data that they provide.  Without it this entire conversation wouldn’t have been possible.