3 Trades To Make Carolina Hurricanes And New Jersey Devils Better

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.