How New Jersey Devils Can Pull Off Taylor Hall And Patrik Laine

The New Jersey Devils could make massive upgrades to the wing this offseason.

The New Jersey Devils traded Taylor Hall to the Arizona Coyotes this past season, getting two future draft picks, and prospects Kevin Bahl, Nick Merkley, and Nate Schnarr in December. Since then, the Devils had never really filled the hole that was on the first line. They tried a lot of players, including ones that made no sense. Jack Hughes was given an extended look there, and it went terribly. They finished the season with Miles Wood on the top line, and we’re all happy that experiment is also over.

No offense to those two players, but we don’t want to see them in the top left wing spot. Hughes is better served as a center. Wood is better served in a bottom-six role. They both have a ton of skills, but they don’t translate to that specific position. This is especially true when trying to replace someone who won MVP from that same position.

Now, that former MVP is becoming a free agent after yet another playoff run, albeit a very weird one. Hall gets to try and be the leader for the Coyotes they traded for. Either way, he made it pretty clear he wants to see this free agency thing out, no matter how long it takes.

That means the Devils are going to have a chance to bring Hall back. We’ve covered why we think we should bring Hall back. I’ve covered it. Vinnie has covered it. We don’t need to convince you at this point why he’d be a smart signing for the right price.

That’s the key here; the right price. Hall is going to come at a major discount this offseason. At least, he’s going to cost a lot less than he would have if the Devils signed him last offseason. We thought Hall was going to command a contract similar to the one Artemi Panarin just signed. The New York Rangers gave him an average of $11.64 million on a seven-year deal. Let’s be honest. If the Devils gave Hall that same contract a year ago, wouldn’t most of us be happy?

Now, Hall is looking at a fraction of that deal. He was underwhelming this season, scoring just 16 goals in 65 games. Hall needed to show he could stay healthy after a few injury-riddled seasons, but his production took him out of that elite tier.

How much did Hall lose? Probably around $3+ million. With the lack of production and the global pandemic stifling profits across the league, we see Hall getting lucky if he gets a team to pay him $8 million. The free agency pool is decent this season, but he’s still the top dog. He can command that.

So, the Devils sign Hall to that massive contract, putting out $8 million per season. What’s their cap situation look like? It’s still pretty good.

So bear with us, because things are about to get weird.

What if the Devils could sign Hall, but still make a major trade for another scoring forward. What if they trade for one of the best young scorers in the game who might want out of his current situation. Patrik Laine is a player the Devils should target whenever they can trade with the Winnipeg Jets.

The Jets are in a weird position that would probably be even weirder if Connor Hellebuyck didn’t drag them to a playoff spot this season. Dustin Byfuglien left in the weirdest way possible. They lost Tyler Myers and Jacob Trouba on the defense as well. They went from having one of the best blue lines to one with Neal Pionk leading the way.

They might want to start from scratch, and the Devils have the pieces to help them there. It’s going to cost a ton to get Laine, but with the pandemic pushing the salary cap back to $81.5 million, we expect the pool of suitors to be smaller than usual.

The Devils can offer them a young proven NHLer in Jesper Bratt (that hurts, I know), a couple of middle-tier prospects (let them pick any two of the picks they made last season, or add someone more

established and a lower-tier guy), throw in Mirco Mueller to eat some minutes on defense then give up the two draft picks the Devils got in the Taylor Hall trade. Again, it’s a haul, but it gets them Patrik Laine.

So, here is what the Devils forwards would look like at this point:

Taylor Hall-Nico Hischier-Kyle Palmieri
Patrik Laine-Jack Hughes-Nikita Gusev
Pavel Zacha-Travis Zajac-Jesper Boqvist
Miles Wood-Michael McLeod-Joey Anderson

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McLeod could be switched out with one of the 15 other Devils prospects that are close to NHL ready (Janne Kuokkanen, Nathan Bastian, Nolan Foote, etc).

That’s an insane forward group. It also gives the Devils opportunities to reward prospects that are excelling because they have open spots for young players.

There are two issues with this plan. Where does that leave the defense, which needs more work, and what happens if someone gets injured? To answer about the defense, there’s still a little money to spend to get a decent second-pairing player, but a first-line guy is likely out of the question. Let’s say Ty Smith is the only prospect that’s NHL ready (Bahl needs a season in the AHL in our opinion), then free agent options are their best bet.

They could bring back Dakota Mermis who played pretty well at the end of the season, but he should be someone who fights Connor Carrick for that last defensive spot if anything. The best possible scenario is they sign Brendan Dillion with some of the remaining $5ish million they have left. He would be a nice option on the left side, and he could pair well with P.K. Subban.

It’s an insane proposal that only makes sense on CapFriendly’s Arm Chair GM tool. We get that. However, this proves that it doesn’t take much for the Devils to make a major impact this offseason. They also aren’t that far off from making moves that put them in better contention.