New Jersey Devils: 3 Trade Proposals For Kevin Fiala

This would be a deal that really helps the Minnesota Wild fill their roster with significant pieces while they transition from one era to the other. Alexander Holtz is obviously the most significant piece going the other way, and the Wild also get an NHL-caliber player in Jesper Boqvist who is getting better every year. Boqvist is only 23 years old, so he could get even better than he was this season. He locked down the third-line center position, and he could do the same thing for the Wild next season.

Holtz is where this hurts the Devils. He’s someone most people expect to make the NHL roster next season, and he’s expected to be a 30-goal scorer sooner rather than later. He hasn’t been great on the NHL level. In fact, he was pretty bad. He played eight games in the NHL this past season.

Holtz had the worst CorsiFor percentage on the team out of all players who played at least 50 minutes at 5v5. In fact, his 37.65% is sixth-worst in the entire league. It’s clear the NHL game is much faster than the AHL game, because Holtz was dominating the minor leagues. He had 51 points in 50 games for the Utica Comets. His team is preparing for the playoffs this week. If he does something great on a run for the Comets, it would be hard to trade him, but it might be the smarter move over losing the team’s first-round pick.

Reilly Walsh and the 2nd-round pick just add to the package here. Walsh made his NHL debut after he had himself a great season in the NHL. Walsh is also right handed, which increases his value immensely. The Devils don’t have a lot of right-handed defensemen in their prospect pool, so losing Walsh on top of Holtz would hurt.