3 Players New Jersey Devils Should Target From Vegas Golden Knights
By Dave Browne
The NHL offseason is in full swing for the New Jersey Devils and other teams across the league. The Devils are one of the fortunate teams where they could weaponize their abundance of salary cap space to acquire assets that could help them in the immediate future. The Devils did just that when they acquired Andreas Johnsson from the Toronto Maple Leafs and only gave up young winger Joey Anderson. Under normal circumstances, the Devils would need to sweeten the pot and throw in a draft pick in the trade, but with a flat salary cap and teams looking to shed salary Anderson was enough to get the deal done.
That leads us to the Vegas Golden Knights. Alex Pietrangelo just inked a long-term deal with the franchise, so Vegas will need to shed some salary in order to facilitate that kind of big signing. They just shipped out defenseman Nate Schmidt to the Vancouver Canucks, which clears some salary, but they still need to shed more since they are still technically over the cap.
The names Vegas will look to deal may include forwards Reilly Smith, Jonathan Marchessault, Max Pacioretty and defenseman Alec Martinez. Vegas has a few intriguing assets which should appeal to general manager Tom Fitzgerald. Let’s dive into who the Devils should acquire from Vegas.