Armchair GM trades can get very strange. We looked at some options for the Devils.
For those who know, CapFriendly’s Armchair GM tool can be very fun, but also a very sobering way to see how other fans value your team’s players. Spoiler alert, they don’t. Still, it’s fun to go through the trades and see what everyone thinks.
So, we did just that, and now we’re going to assess just how realistic some of these trades are. We took out a lot of the garbage deals. No, the New Jersey Devils aren’t going to trade Jack Hughes because they have a defenseman need. No, the Devils aren’t going to trade Kyle Palmieri for a 3rd-round pick. No, Hughes and Damon Severson is not fair compensation for Mitch Marner. And no, the Devils do not want Sven Bärtschi. (He was in at least six trades. Derek Ryan was in another five. No thank you.)
The trades were very interesting. There was a nice mixture of cap dumps where teams gave up assets to dump big contracts, teams looking to pilfer the Devils prospect pool in order to get good value for a star, and teams looking to make a trade that makes sense for both teams.
We picked five that kind of made sense. None were too in favor of the Devils or the other team. They all make you sit back and think. That is the entire purpose of this exercise. These trades probably aren’t going to happen, but it tells us of value for the Devils’ assets and the assets the Devils might covet.