5 New Jersey Devils Players Who Could Be Available At Trade Deadline
The New Jersey Devils are going to be selling at the NHL Trade Deadline. That much is clear again. The team is close to the bottom of the Metropolitan Division standings, and they have less than a 1% chance to make the playoffs. It’s probably closer to 0% than 1%. They would have to win at a 130-point pace over the second half of the season to make it to 100 points at the end of the season. This team does not have that capability when Jon Gillies and Akira Schmid are the starting goalies. No offense to them, but this team is on its fourth and fifth options in net.
So, Tom Fitzgerald becomes another player at the trade deadline to help the other teams in the league. This isn’t new. The Devils have been sellers at the NHL Trade Deadline for four straight seasons. Over the past three seasons, they traded Taylor Hall, Andy Greene, Blake Coleman, Kyle Palmieri, Travis Zajac, Brian Boyle, Sami Vatanen, Wayne Simmonds, Keith Kinkaid, Ben Lovejoy, and Marcus Johansson. That is a lot of veteran talent out the door.
Here’s the difference between this year and previous years. There aren’t really obvious players that the Devils will want to trade. Only four players are unrestricted free agents at the end of the year, and one of them is Gillies. The Devils can’t afford to lose any capable goalies at this point. That means that Tom Fitzgerald will need to get creative this season to make trades happen. He does have six restricted free agents that are finished at the end of the season, and while the Devils still have their rights, they might use that as leverage in a deadline deal. The deadline is March 21st, so the Devils have just under two months to get these players going and build their value.
P.K. Subban
Let’s start with the obvious. P.K. Subban is the one trade target that makes the most sense. He’s on the last year of his deal, he’s not on the same timeline as the other players on the team, and he’s lost a step from his previous Norris Trophy-winning seasons. However, Subban still has a decent amount of value around the league. The league will always put a higher value on a player with a pedigree. Subban has that, and he can still provide really good depth on a team’s blue line.
On top of that, he is right handed. That is huge for teams looking for defenders. There are a limited amount of superstar right-handed defensemen in the league. While Subban isn’t a superstar anymore, he can still eat a lot of minutes, he can play on the power play, and he’s someone who hasn’t lost too much on his shot (although, it could hit the net more often).
Subban is also prone to the big play. He’s made multiple stick-to-stick passes hitting a cutting offensive player in stride and leading a breakaway. He would be able to do that more for a team oozing with talent. There are multiple teams that could use someone with his ability in the passing game. The Devils have limited offensive weapons, so he only has so many opportunities to make these passes happen.
Subban still makes occasional mistakes, but the Devils can make it worthwhile for opposing teams. His $9 million salary is a lot to handle, but that salary is $4.5 million at this point. Then, the Devils can handle half of that, so a team really only needs to make $2 million available for a deal to work out. This seems like the most likely outcome unless the Devils think they want to re-sign Subban for future depth.
Damon Severson
The other right-handed defenseman that could become available this season is Damon Severson. This one would be a little harder to swallow for the Devils since he’s signed for one more season after this one at a very reasonable rate. Severson has been a player who’s been controversial amongst the fanbase for years. He should be celebrated as a great draft pick that easily lived up to the hype. However, he, like Subban, is prone to the on-ice mistake which makes people forget about all the good he brings to the table.
The reason the Devils might look to move Severson at the trade deadline is he has an insane amount of value. As we said, he has another year left on his contract that’s only paying him $4.16 million on the cap and just over $5 million in actual dollars.
Severson has a ton of value across the league. Also like Subban, he’s right-handed. He has the ability to step into a top-line role when it’s absolutely necessary. When considering second-line right-handed defensemen, there aren’t many players better than Severson. There are the outlier teams like Colorado who are just ridiculously stacked at the position, but Severson would upgrade that position for basically any other team.
Will the Devils make Severson available? He’s similar to Blake Coleman in that making him available now would severely increase his value. It’s rare that the Devils ever trade a player like Severson in the offseason, so it would be now or the hope would be never because if they trade him next season that means they are selling again.
Pavel Zacha
This one doesn’t need a ton of explaining, but it is like the Devils would be selling an asset they spent a lot of at the nadir of his value. Pavel Zacha is in a dreadful scoring slump right now, and the fanbase is just over it. He has 18 points in 38 games this season, which is basically on a 36 point pace for the year.
Teams aren’t really pining for 36-point players, but Zacha is a little different. He’s a former sixth-overall pick, and teams will always be intrigued by that. He had 35 points in 50 games last season, which is a 57-point pace. He was tied for the Devils lead in goals, and he provided a lot of necessary offense from a middle-six role.
For this deal to work, Zacha needs to go on one of his patented hot streaks. Right now, he’s gone pointless in 12 of his last 14 games. He had a goal and an assist in the Carolina Hurricanes game, which was an important one for this team, but besides that, he’s been a ghost. The thing about Zacha is he will ghost, but then out of nowhere, he will be the hottest scorer on the team. Hopefully, that hot streak comes soon.
If it does, then he will turn some heads at the trade deadline. He’s a restricted free agent at the end of the season, and the Devils likely have no idea what to do with him. He likely wants a raise, but has he earned one? Can the Devils really pay Zacha $3 million per season or more for what he provides this offense? On paper, he’s a second-line winger who has the ability to play center when necessary. In reality, he’s hamstringing the Devils by always taking a spot despite being extremely volatile on the offensive side of the ice. The Devils might want to get off the Zacha roller coaster even if it gets exciting again.
Jimmy Vesey
The Devils took a chance on Jimmy Vesey in the offseason, and he’s been really good for them. He has 10 points, including six goals, in 34 games while also playing a crucial role on the penalty kill. The Devils asked him to change his hockey philosophy when he came into training camp on a PTO, and he’s done a phenomenal job playing his role. He’s on a line right now with Michael McLeod and Nathan Bastian, and they are the only line that can bring the physicality that some games call for.
Teams are willing to trade for players like Vesey. The playoffs are a game of inches. Every goal and every play matters, and Vesey has become a player who can stop others from scoring. He’s only been on the ice for 18 goals against, which is tops on the team for anyone who’s played at least 300 minutes. He hasn’t been on the ice for a lot of goals, but that’s not his role in this league anymore.
Vesey is a shutdown guy at the forward position. Is that where we thought he would be at this point in his career? No, but we have to give him credit for rolling with the punches. He’s a defensive guy now, and he’s really good at that role. Teams are always looking for depth at the bottom of the roster.
Vesey will have some value on the trade market but not a ton. If the Devils get a middle-round pick for him, we should all be happy. That’s still some pretty good value for a guy you got for free in the offseason.
Tomas Tatar
This one is intriguing, but Tomas Tatar has been up and down for the Devils since signing a two-year deal in the offseason. He was coming off a disastrous run with the Montreal Canadiens. He had some crazy highs with that team, but it ended with him watching a run to the Stanley Cup Final in the press box. He still got a $9 million deal in the offseason from the Devils. Everyone was happy with it, too.
Tatar has great advanced stats, but his counting numbers have been pretty bad for a while now. We highlighted that he’s been unlucky and a scoring stretch could be on the horizon, but that was before more injuries put the Devils in the tank. Can he still go on a scoring streak and increase his value before March?
It would be hard for him to get as many chances as he’s gotten and still have a lack of scoring this entire time. Tatar is an interesting target.
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However, his second year might actually be a deterrent to a deal. $4.5 million isn’t exactly chear, and the Devils might not want to carry half of that hit next year just to get a deal done. It’s not like the Devils are getting a first-round pick out of this deal, so it wouldn’t make sense to hold salary in 2022-23 when they have to sign some important restricted free agents and still add to this team to make it competitive. This one seems like a long shot, but it was still worth mentioning.