Will Butcher, Defenseman
After winning the Will Butcher sweepstakes in 2017, the 24-year old Sun Prairie, Wisconsin native has been a prolific contributor to the Devil’s defense. Although he scored 14 fewer points in his sophomore campaign (30) compared to his rookie season (44), Butcher was still a fixture on the Devils power play, while improving or maintaining other quality aspects of his game.
His even strength Corsi For percentage was 50.1, which led all Devils skaters who played in more than 35 games—same goes for his Fenwick For (51.3 percent) and Relative Corsi For (+4.9). Simply put, the Devils possessed the puck more than 50 percent of the time and averaged 4.9 more shots while Butcher was on the ice at even strength.
These figures are also complimented by Butcher’s—GAR (Goals Above Replacement), which compares an individual player’s value to a replacement player (better known as “depth players”), based on goal differential. Will Butcher had a GAR of +6.8 at even strength—which ranked third on the team and highest among Devils defensemen—and a GAR of +1.7 on the power play, which led the Devils in 2018-2019.
Butcher is a restricted free agent and could wind up signing a bridge deal for 2-4 years, commanding a minimum AAV between $3-4.5 million—I’m sure many teams would prefer signing a recently-acquired defenseman to a short-term cap-friendlier bridge contract than make a long-term high-salary commitment. However, the only conceivable scenario where I can see Shero trade Butcher is if he’s part of a package that brings in a top-end player.