New Jersey Devils: 5 Players To Target At Trade Deadline

Ryan Donato

The fall of the San Jose Sharks is confusing, but it’s clearly not stopping anytime soon. After trading for Erik Karlsson, just about everything has gone wrong. They are once again falling out of contention early this season, and it’s going to be another hard pill to swallow. They traded multiple draft picks in the offseason, and now they only have six of their own picks in this year’s draft. They are also missing their own 2nd-round pick.

They traded a 3rd-round pick that was originally Pittsburgh’s to get Ryan Donato. They had plenty of draft capital at one point, but most of it is gone. They’ll need to get more of it to really jump-start this rebuild. Donato is a nice piece to get those pieces going.

He’s been pretty good this season playing in the Sharks’ top six. However, his advanced numbers seem to show more struggles. He’s been on the ice for 26 high-dangers chances for and 40 high-danger chances against. That’s not a great ratio. It gets even worse when looking at high-danger goals (3 to 8).

This is by far the worst Donato has looked on the ice. Just last season, when he was on the ice at 5v5, his team got 63% of the high-danger chances. While the counting stats have been fine, Donato has found himself pinned in his zone far too often to really thrive.

Donato is only 24 years old, so he falls into the age range that Tom Fitzgerald is looking to acquire. His contract ends after this season, but he’s a restricted free agent. The Devils would have negotiating rights, and he would be eligible for the Seattle expansion draft. If it doesn’t work out, that would be a very intriguing piece for them. It shouldn’t cost more than the 3rd-round pick the Sharks paid in the offseason, right?