The New Jersey Devils could make a major trade for a defenseman at the draft.
The New Jersey Devils‘ biggest need is on defense. That has been clear for a long time. They tried to address it with the Sami Vatanen trade in 2017. He was really good, but he couldn’t fill the top line by himself as other defensemen can. One person who’s done that in the past is P.K. Subban. So, the Devils traded for him last offseason. It hasn’t worked out as planned.
The Devils have an interesting opportunity to finally fill the position without having to rely on an aging veteran. The defending Stanley Cup Champions have a slight salary cap issue and Mikhail Sergachev needs a new deal. There’s no way the Lightning want to trade a defenseman of his ilk who is just 22 years old.
The Lightning have just $5.3 million in salary cap space and only three defensemen signed next season. Ryan McDonagh and Victor Hedman take up more than $14 million in space. Obviously, trading away Sergachev would severely hurt that unit. There’s not a lot of players who can replace him. However, the Lightning are in a bad way. They could give $1 million to bring back Kevin Shattenkirk, put Cal Foote in next year’s lineup, and give a slight raise to Erik Cernak to survive the next season. However, that’s pretty much all of the Lightning’s space.
Sergachev is going to make at least $5 million per season if contract projections are right. Even on a bridge deal like Brayden Point signed (three years, $20.25 million), Sergachev is going to ask for upwards of $6 million. Since the Lightning won the Stanley Cup, it will be curious how they move forward with this team.
The Lightning are not going to accept anything less than awesome in return for Sergachev. It’s hard to get a player of his caliber at that age without drafting him. The Lightning got lucky that the Montreal Canadiens were willing to trade him at all. Now, they have a found asset.
The Devils could offer them the seventh-overall pick in the NHL Draft. This would give them a chance to get a young, quality defenseman who might be ready in one year like Jamie Drysdale or Jake Sanderson. They could also get a really good forward to replace some of their aging superstars in the near future.
Who knows if the Lightning would even consider a trade with the Devils, but getting Sergachev is the most intriguing option in a trade for the seventh-overall pick we’ve seen.