3 Trades To Make Carolina Hurricanes And New Jersey Devils Better
The New Jersey Devils are trying to make their NHL team better. The rebuild has been going on for years, and they came up with a lot of good prospects. Meanwhile, the Carolina Hurricanes went through their own rebuild, and it helped them become a true Stanley Cup contender. The only reason they didn’t make it further is they faced the buzzsaw that was the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Hurricanes just re-upped their head coach Rod Brind’Amour and his entire staff. That was the offseason’s biggest priority. They also have to deal with some very important contracts before free agency starts. Andrei Svechnikov is the huge one. He’s a restricted free agent, and rumors say he already turned down an eight-year deal that would pay him $7 million per season. So, it’s going to cost more.
They also have Warren Foegele, Jordan Martinook, Dougie Hamilton, and Jake Bean on different expiring contracts. On top of all that, they don’t have a goalie signed. Their veterans Petr Mrazek and James Reimer are both unrestricted free agents. Alex Nedeljkovic is a Calder Trophy finalist and needs a new contract already. $29 million sounds like a lot until all those new contracts start to rear their ugly heads.
The Devils can absolutely help the Hurricanes with their situation. This, while the Hurricanes help the Devils out as well. It might be a little harder to do after the Devils and Hurricanes disagreed over the Sami Vatanen-Janne Kuokkanen trade deadline deal in 2020. The Hurricanes figured since the regular season ended, they didn’t have to give up a draft pick. The Devils took it up the NHL chain, and they ended up getting a 3rd-round pick in the deal.
Teams have overcome worse, and if the deal helps all parties out, both teams will make it work. Here are three trades that could end with everyone coming out happy.
Everyone knows by now that the Hurricanes allowed the best unrestricted free agent on the market to test his market earlier than everyone else. Dougie Hamilton is allowed to speak with every other team to see if they can give him a better offer than the Hurricanes can. Then, the Hurricanes could get something in return. The Hurricanes were in a similar situation with Adam Fox. He actually refused to sign with the Hurricanes, and he threatened to go back to Harvard and become a free agent. He ended up getting the Hurricanes two 2nd-round picks after all conditions were met.
We’re using that as a benchmark for a Dougie Hamilton trade. Refusing to sign with the Hurricanes and demanding a trade to the Rangers holds the same value as going to free agency in a few weeks. The Hurricanes were able to get a pretty good deal despite being in a position of weakness.
The Devils would love to have Dougie Hamilton. He’s a right-handed defenseman in the middle of his prime. He’s going to cost a ton of money, and maybe he’s coming a little too early in the process, but it’s not like these players are going to come up every season. Hamilton will always bring value, even if he is signed to an eight-year deal. Unless he gets injured, he should always have some value unlike a signing like Kevin Shattenkirk who got paid because he was the best of what was available.
The Devils wouldn’t want to give up two draft picks in the deal, so they switched it with a prospect who is close to NHL ready. Mikhail Maltsev played 33 games in the NHL last season and spent most of the rest of the season on the taxi squad. He’s 23 years old, and he looks like he could be on the bottom line of a contending team every night. The Hurricanes would love to have that in their lineup.
This is a LOT to give up for Jake Bean, but he’s a 23-year-old defenseman that can grow with this young Devils team. The Hurricanes took him with the 13th-overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft. He was taken right after the Devils took Michael McLeod. It’s the pick after that where things start to hurt. The Boston Bruins took Charlie McAvoy 14th overall. Both the Devils and Hurricanes would like a new shot at that pick, but that’s not the point here.
The point here is the Devils want a better defenseman than what they have. They want someone who can play in the NHL every day, and the NHL Draft doesn’t have anything close to a guarantee at the end of the round. Jesper Boqvist also desperately needs a change of scenery after flaming out with now two head coaches after coming over from Sweden with all of the expectations.
Meanwhile, the Devils get Jake Bean. He’s a flawed defenseman, sure, but he showed during his time with the Charlotte Checkers that he has the makings of a great defenseman. He had 48 points in 59 games in his last AHL season. Unfortunately, the points did not translate in the NHL last season. He only had 12 points in 42 games. In the playoffs, Bean only had one point in 11 games.
We should not judge him completely on a pandemic-shortened season where everything was flipped on its head. Bean has first-line defenseman potential still. That costs a lot in today’s NHL. A 1st-round pick and a talented prospect should get the job done when it looks like Bean was about to be lost to the expansion draft.
This one seems like a surprise as Nino Niederreiter is an important part of the roster, but sometimes teams have to make hard decisions. The best teams move on from players one year too early rather than one year too late. Niederreiter is going to be a free agent next offseason, and the Hurricanes might want to get a deal for him now.
The Hurricanes got Niederreiter straight up for Victor Rask. If he leaves in free agency, they won that deal by a long shot. Niederreiter has a propensity for clutch goals, and he brings a little extra to the middle six. He was injured right before the Tampa series, and he wasn’t able to return until Game 5. He wasn’t able to contribute much, and he was only able to watch as his team got eliminated.
The Devils would love a player like Niederreiter to play on the wing. There’s no denying that fact. Would they be willing to give away a possible scorer in Graeme Clarke and another high pick on top of it? It seems plausible because of Clarke’s injury history. He could be a star, or he could see his career end with another shoulder injury. He’s missed dozens of games across his junior career already. Imagine what happens when he makes it to the hard-hitting NHL?
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However, the Hurricanes would love his 30-goal upside. He could be Patrick Laine on the next level if everything goes perfect. That’s a lot of upside to get for a player that could be leaving in a year. This is one of those deals where everyone hates it at first but it might work out perfectly in the end.