3 New Jersey Devils Trades With Struggling Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks are one of the most disappointing teams in the NHL. Their loss to the lowly Chicago Blackhawks over the weekend feels like the last straw for a management team that is once again ruining a young core that is supposed to be dominating. Having Elias Petterson turn into a superstar and Quinn Hughes has grown into a top defender. However, they have a lot of interesting pieces on a roster that is moving scarily towards the bottom, and it could be an interesting time for the New Jersey Devils to target them.
Even when the defense plays well, the offense gets shut out. When they get four goals, the other team gets seven. Everything is going wrong with the Canucks, and they have just 14 points in 19 games. They are in second to last place in the Pacific Division, and they have very little time to turn it around.
Which trades could help the Vancouver Canucks and New Jersey Devils?
The Devils would provide an option for the Canucks to trade some of their assets while also giving them pieces to try and make a turnaround. The Devils have a plethora of young pieces, or the Devils could trade for expiring contracts to make a move this season.
After the Devils big win against the Tampa Bay Lightning, they are sitting in a playoff spot. Now, it’s way too early to think about that, but with Jack Hughes skating again, the Devils can at least think about becoming contenders for a playoff spot. Adding a few pieces might be exactly what they need to push themselves over the top in a very competitive Metropolitan Division.
J.T. Miller is the perfect player for the New Jersey Devils and Vancouver Canucks to target in a trade. He’s still got an extra year left on his deal, he’s been a leader on the ice, and he is still in his 20s, so he has plenty of time to mesh with the Devils roster. His cost is very hard to pin down. The Canucks spent a 1st-round pick to get Miller from the cap-strapped Lightning.
That was three seasons ago, and there have been varied results since then. The first season Canucks and Miller were together, they went to Game 7 of the second round with the Vegas Golden Knights. It seemed like they would be a perfect combination. Miller grew into his new role as a top forward, and the Canucks had the perfect young core to build around him.
The second season was shortened by the pandemic, but Miller was still productive. He’s even been productive this season despite the Canucks being in the tank. He has 19 points in 19 games.
It’s going to cost the Devils something significant to get Miller on the roster. Janne Kuokkanen seems like the right type of player to help them with their turnaround. He does a lot right, but he’s struggling to get points this season. He could turn that part of his season around with the talent in Vancouver. Nikita Okhotyuk might have to be replaced with a better prospect, and they might demand someone like Kevin Bahl. It might be worth it.
Where the Devils should say no is if the Canucks demand a 1st-round pick. The team just isn’t in a position to trade something like that in such a deep draft for a player that might be here for a year and a half.
The New Jersey Devils need help on the power play. Honestly, the Canucks aren’t a great power-play team, but they do have a lot of contributors. Nobody on the team has more than two PP goals, but four players are tied for the team lead with two. One of those players is Alex Chiasson. He’s basically only contributing on the power play. The Canucks need more than that.
The Devils could put Chiasson in a position to succeed this season while at even strength, and Chiasson could help them with the second unit of the power play. He could play on the third or fourth line and provide secondary help. He is, however, primarily a power-play specialist.
The Devils just need people who know how to contribute with the man advantage. It’s really that simple. Their power play could tank the whole season if they don’t fix it. Maybe a 3rd-round pick is too high a price for someone the Canucks brought in on a professional tryout before the season, but the Devils need that kind of help. They have their own PTO that’s helping with the penalty kill in Jimmy Vesey, so maybe they can get lucky again with Chiasson.
This would be the most likely trade because the Devils have the assets to give up a middle-round pick this season. The Devils have three 4th-round picks, so if it takes a 3rd to make this deal happen, the Devils will still have plenty of assets to make a deal happen later in the season.
Don’t do it. The Vancouver Canucks are not trading Quinn Hughes to the New Jersey Devils. Yeah, we somehow got both Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes in the system, but there is no way they just gave a long-term contract to Quinn Hughes just to trade him a few months later. Unless…
The New Jersey Devils would have to blow the Canucks out of the water to get Quinn Hughes now. This trade is insane. We will admit that. Trading two 1st-round picks for Quinn Hughes after he struggled last year is selling the farm without a guarantee coming back.
The Canucks are going to start the conversation with three names: Dawson Mercer, Alex Holtz, and Ty Smith. The Devils are going to say no to all three of those requests. The Canucks would them move on to picks, and one 1st-rounder is not going to cut it for a 22-year-old defenseman who is cost controlled until 2027.
It’s strange to consider the cost of Quinn Hughes, and the Canucks likely see him as more of a solution than a problem, but the Canucks need a change. Maybe this can show that they are committed to making moves for the future. The teams make sense, but the Devils would actually have to figure out the defense after this move. They might have to trade away P.K. Subban in a corresponding move. Or, they might have to let Ty Smith spend some time in the AHL to work on some of his issues. Jonas Siegenthaler and Ryan Graves have both been too good this season to even consider doing anything with them on the left side. They can either move Smith to the right, or put him in the AHL.
This is an extremely complicated deal, and it likely made a lot more sense last year, however it’s hard to resist just seeing what it would cost to bring the three Hughes brothers together.