New Jersey Devils Trade Andy Greene To New York Islanders

The New Jersey Devils made their second sell-off move of this season, sending their captain Andy Greene to the New York Islanders. How did they do in this trade?

The New Jersey Devils are moving on from their now former captain Andy Greene. He won’t have to go far, as he’s headed to the New York Islanders in exchange for a 2nd-round pick and defenseman David Quenneville.

An instant reaction to the trade is it’s a major win for the Devils. Greene, like Ben Lovejoy last season, was probably in his last games in a New Jersey Devils uniform. It’s a little different, because Greene is one of two players that was still around from the Devils last run to the Stanley Cup Finals back in 2012. The only other player from that team is Travis Zajac, who could decide to leave too.

The 2nd-round pick the Devils got for Greene is in 2021. So, they will have to pick from a considerably worse draft class, but it’s still a major win because it gives the Devils extra assets to make trades over the offseason. The Devils sent out a 2nd- and 3rd-round pick in 2020 in the deals for Nikita Gusev and P.K. Subban. If they had extra pieces, then they’d be holding on to their own picks in this year’s draft, which are much more valuable.

Quenneville is an extremely undersized defensive prospect who was taken in the 7th round by the Islanders back in 2016. He’s bounced between the ECHL and AHL this season, which shows he has a long way to go if he could ever make the NHL. The good news is the kid is just 21 years old, so he has time to develop.

In the end, the Devils are getting a very valuable asset for a player in Greene that just didn’t fit for what the Devils were asking of him. He’s not a first-line defender and he doesn’t fit with a player like Subban at this age. Well, for some reason that’s where they put him.

We have a long time to wait to see the dividends of this trade, but we can all agree that this is a trade that on the surface looks like a win to us.