The New Jersey Devils can still take advantage of teams over the salary cap.
The league just announced that they have an agreement in place with the NHL Player’s Association to start play on January 13th. The New Jersey Devils can start their training camp on December 30th or 31st since they were one of seven teams that missed out on the 24-team extended playoff. That gives the Devils less than two weeks to solidify their roster going into training camp.
Right now, it seems clear the Devils have at least three extra spots in their starting lineup. They have enough prospects to fight for those spots, but that might not be entirely ideal. Would they rather go into a shortened season with some combination of Jesper Boqvist, Michael McLeod, Nick Merkley, Yegor Sharangovich, and Janne Kuokkanen taking three spots, or would they rather add a veteran from a team that’s struggling to stay under the salary cap?
Right now, CapFriendly says that 10 teams are over the $81.5 million salary cap. Four other teams have less than $1 million in salary cap space. This doesn’t even consider the teams with an internal salary cap due to profit losses coming from the pandemic.
The Devils have a real opportunity here. Teams have very little time to get compliant, so they can’t hold out for the best deal. The Devils currently have $17 million in salary cap space. They still need to sign Mackenzie Blackwood and Jesper Bratt, who likely take a maximum of $7 million of that space. After signing enough players to fill the 23-man roster, the Devils likely have $6-7 million to play with. This gives them plenty of money to play around with and a bunch of teams desperate to move contracts. These five teams make a lot of sense for a trade over the next week.