The New Jersey Devils moved up in the NHL Draft Lottery and are now picking second overall. During the IIHF World Championships, Juraj Slafkovsky was one of the more dominant young players on the ice. During his exit interview, Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald mentioned that he was willing to trade his first-round draft pick for the right player, but that was back when it was the fifth or sixth overall pick.
All of these things matter in the ensuing article. That’s because there have been some CRAZY offers for the second-overall pick. No, these aren’t the kind of crazy offers that will actually move the need for Fitzgerald. These are the types of deals that make us shake our heads and laugh at the opposing fanbase.
They are still worth talking about, if not for pure fun. We went on CapFriendly’s Armchair GM to see some of the trades being proposed. We only looked at deals being proposed by other fanbases. Let’s just say we were surprised at the “stars” fans were “willing” to give up here.
Montreal Canadiens trade proposal
We’ve seen way too many iterations of this trade proposal. Josh Anderson is not worth the second-overall pick. No lie, we’ve seen AT LEAST a dozen different examples where Montreal Canadiens fans proposed a deal for the second-overall pick that surrounded Josh Anderson. Why in the heck would the Devils even consider it? We ran a poll on this, and it’s going about as well as you could imagine.
Out of curiosity, is there ANY #NJDevils fan who would be happy with Josh Anderson as the centerpiece of a 2nd-overall pick trade. Must comment if you are in favor of the deal!
— Pucks and Pitchforks (@pitchforkedpuck) May 29, 2022
Anderson is sitting on a contract that pays him $5.5 million for the next five seasons. That contract is atrocious right now for a player who had just 32 points this past season. He did score 19 goals on an obviously tanking Canadiens team, but he had eight of those points in November. He was consistently inconsistent the entire season.
Anderson is a fine player overall. He’s not someone you don’t want on your team, we guess. However, to even consider him the centerpiece of a trade that moves you up 25 picks to allow you to pick second overall and takes the Devils out of the top guys in a draft with very little depth is preposterous.