New Jersey Devils: 3 High-Priced Options To Replace Corey Crawford
The New Jersey Devils have some new-found cap space for a backup goalie.
The New Jersey Devils announced on Saturday that their big free-agent signing Corey Crawford was retiring from the National Hockey League. It doesn’t matter his reasoning behind the retirement, but the Devils do have to deal with it. The Devils have four goalies under contract right now. That’s fine for the first month of the season, but they need to get someone in the building before the AHL season starts.
The best option is probably to either wait for someone to go on waivers or to bring Nico Daws in on a contract (if his OHL season is indeed canceled) and then push either Evan Cormier to the taxi squad or put Gilles Senn as a backup to Mackenzie Blackwood. However, if the Devils are still committed to bringing in a veteran behind Blackwood, there are options. Obviously, Jimmy Howard is still on the free-agent market, but he was so bad last season that Scott Wedgewood might be a better option.
However, before the Devils signed Crawford, there was talk they could go after one of the highly-priced veteran goalies in the trade market. The goalie trade market wasn’t as fruitful as some thought. The only goalies who were traded were Matt Murray from Pittsburgh to Ottawa, Devan Dubnyk from Minnesota to San Jose, and Jake Allen from St. Louis to Montreal. Two of those came with surprising returns (the fact that the Wild and Blues got anything for those goalies is phenomenal).
To be clear, the Devils aren’t giving anything up to get these high-priced trade targets. In fact, if they don’t get a draft pick along with the asset, it might be better to target the waiver market. However, this is just looking at all the options before making a final decision.
Marc-Andre Fleury
It felt like a guarantee that the Vegas Golden Knights were going to trade their first expansion pick. They just gave Robin Lehner a huge contract after trading for him at last year’s trade deadline. So, right now, Fleury is making $7 million per season, third-highest among current goalies this season (when ranking salary and not cap hit). He’s not worth that price anymore, but he’s still a very serviceable goalie.
The Golden Knights are currently about $1 million over the cap. Obviously, they don’t need to lose $7 million worth of Fleury to get compliant, but they do need to do something. Shedding themselves of Fleury’s contract helps them this year and next year. It also gets them the ability to make moves at the trade deadline. If they barely get themselves under the cap, they need to pray for an injury to get some maneuverability.
This also helps the Devils during the expansion draft, since Fleury does not have a no-move clause (although he might have used it to stay in Vegas anyway). He does have a modified no-trade clause, so he could put the Devils on that list. Either way, some things have to fall into place for the Devils to make this move.
Would the Golden Knights be willing to give up on Fleury for nothing? It’s hard to tell. It has to be an option, though. They want to win the Stanley Cup. They got all the way to the Final in their first year in existence. Since then, they’ve been making gigantic moves to try and get back. They just signed Alex Pietrangelo in the offseason. If trading Fleury eventually helps them make a move to win the Cup, they might do it. They have four young goalies under contract, so they might like one of them enough to make them the backup this season.
Jonathan Quick
I can hear the sighs already, but before you leave, this might be a move the Devils want to make. Why? I’m not really sure, but let’s try to make sense of this.
The Devils need a goalie, and Jonathan Quick showed flashes last season of still being decent at times. Overall, he’s slightly below average, but asking him to play once a week instead of being the steady hand in net might help him get better.
Still, this one is definitely the worst choice on the list. The Los Angeles Kings have one of the best prospect pools in the NHL. Would they be willing to trade one to get Quick off the books for the next three seasons? They better be, or this trade talk is pointless.
The New York Rangers had to give up a 2nd-round pick just to get one year of Mark Staal off the books. There’s no way the Kings are going to give up their 1st-round pick just to get Quick to another team, even if he does have three years left. Prospects are a much better place to start.
So, which ones would they be willing to give up? Quinton Byfield, Arthur Kaliyev, and Alex Turcotte are off the table completely. They will hang up the phone if you offer a good return. This one would be bad. Defensive prospects Jordan Spence and Helge Grans are intriguing options. Not sure if the Kings would give them up, but that’s what it would take to get a Quick deal done, and then it still might not be worth it.
Frederik Andersen
This one might get a little strange, and this one could happen closer to when the AHL season starts, but the Toronto Maple Leafs might be ready to move on from their current starting goalie if they don’t think he’s the right player to win them a Stanley Cup. They could be willing to find another asset from another team, but they’d need to make up for that salary. Trading Freddy Andersen away might be the best way to do that.
The Maple Leafs and Devils already made a trade before the season. The Devils sent Joey Andersen to the Leafs to help them save salary cap space and get Andreas Johnsson. These two can talk again and make another mutually beneficial trade.
Again, the Leafs would have to find a better option than Andersen to start. Jack Campbell has an outside chance to be that, and then they already have Aaron Dell. Should they be confident in that tandem? They should not, but anything is possible in this weird world where the Devils might be desperate for a veteran.
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Andersen would be the best option, but it’s not likely to happen. He’d only have one more season, so the Devils wouldn’t be able to expose him in the Seattle Kraken draft. Still, it’s fun to think about all the options the Devils still have. Not many of them are good, but having any options at all when a goalie retires this late is something.