New Jersey Devils: State of the Salary Cap Address
By Owen Egbert
The Rest Of The Salary Cap
Other than that, The New Jersey Devils don’t have any bad contracts at all. Former GM Ray Shero, though faulted in other ways, managed the Devils’ salary cap frugally. The minimal cap stress will help Tom Fitzgerald, or any future GM immensely.
That said, the contracts expiring this season will be quite difficult to handle and can have a heavy impact on the future of the New Jersey Devils organization. Devils players whose contracts are expiring are Joey Anderson, John Hayden, Jesper Bratt, Kevin Rooney, Mirco Mueller, Fredrik Claesson, Dakota Mermis, Nick Merkley, Brett Seney, Ben Street, Brandon Baddock, Colton White, Josh Jacobs, Julian Melchiori, and Mackenzie Blackwood.
While a good group of these potential free agents will be either signed to AHL contracts or not re-signed at all, there are a couple of players in there that are due to for a hefty raise. Specifically Jesper Bratt and Mackenzie Blackwood. Their contracts could potentially eat up significant cap space in the future, so it is critical that whoever is acting as New Jersey Devils GM signs them to a contract that is reasonable for the organization.
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There is even the potential to lock up these players long-term during a time of salary cap uncertainty. Due to the NHL pause, the salary cap will likely stay the same. It may even go down. That will give the Devils an extra opportunity to negotiate with their potential free agents at the current salary cap. I anticipate the salary cap to rise steadily season-to-season beginning in 2021, which would then reduce the percentage of cap space their current contracts occupy during those future seasons.
All of these factors insinuate the New Jersey Devils having a salary cap advantage for years to come. Though it’s not guaranteed, I think it will be very valuable for the Devils to have cap space to work with a few seasons in the future, when they are making serious runs at the playoffs and potentially the Stanley Cup.