New Jersey Devils: 5 Terrible Trade Proposals For 2nd Overall Pick
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.
Toronto Maple Leafs trade proposal
We wrote a few weeks ago that William Nylander was one of the few players worth considering in a trade for the second-overall pick in the NHL Draft. It seems like he’s the type of player that the Devils could build around. However, this takes that idea and runs with it.
Honestly, it’s not preposterous to think the Devils might consider adding to the pick for Nylander. The Maple Leafs will want everything they can get for him. We’re not really sure who would be willing to offer more than the second-overall pick. There are two really good defensemen in David Jiricek and Simon Nemec available at the pick. There’s also this superstar winger in Juraj Slafkovsky. The Leafs are going to be all in on any of those three players, and they might like Logan Cooley, too.
What makes this trade one of the worst we’ve seen was the addition of Jonas Siegenthaler. Sure, the Devils got him for a third-round pick, but they built him into one of the best defensive defensemen in the league. He’s a building block at this juncture. Trading him as just a piece to push the Leafs over the top when the Devils can get other huge pieces elsewhere is just a bad move.
Leafs fans will always overvalue their assets. The Canadiens do the same thing. It’s something about the privilege that comes with rooting for a Canadian hockey team. Either way, the Devils shouldn’t fall for it. This trade should get a good laugh out of Fitzgerald, but that’s it.
Detroit Red Wings trade proposal
The New Jersey Devils are going to get calls from just about every team in the league wondering what it would take to get the second-overall pick. Even teams who are contenders on a yearly basis still want an asset as great as this. There’s no doubt that Steve Yzerman will call Tom Fitzgerald, and he should hang up because it’s a trap. Yzerman doesn’t lose trades. The Devils should be acutely aware of this fact before moving forward.
The Detroit Red Wings ended up asking for the moon in a deal for Anthony Mantha. One of those pieces was Jakub Vrana. He was really good for the Red Wings at the end of last season. This season, Vrana struggled to stay healthy. He only played 26 games, and he had 19 points in those games.
Listen, Vrana is a fine player. Is he even one of the 100 best players in the NHL right now? It’s debatable, which makes this trade not even worth debating. Vrana just isn’t close to being good enough to talk about the second-overall pick.
The fact that the Red Wings fan wants more than the second-overall pick is psychotic. This trade would make Devils fans riot. There’s a slight chance that Slafkovsky will be a better NHL player next season.
Vancouver Canucks trade proposal
C’mon, you knew the Vancouver Canucks were going to show up here eventually. They are the kings and queens of bad trade proposals. We’ve seen quite a few different proposals surrounding J.T. Miller and the second-overall pick, and they all suck. There is no world where one year of J.T. Miller is worth what the Devils could get from Slafkovsky or Nemec. This is just insane.
We found one trade where it was a straight up deal. There are others where fans actually think the Devils would ADD to this. We wish we had the same hope in our front office that the Canucks fans have in theirs every year. They propose trades that would require hypnosis to get to the league office. There’s no way the Devils would remotely consider this.
Miller is a good player. If he was an unrestricted free agent this offseason, the Devils might consider paying him good money to move across North America. However, trading an insane asset for Miller just isn’t in the cards for the Devils right now. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, quite frankly.
Will some team be willing to trade a first-round pick for one year of Miller? We suppose it’s possible. Is that team going to trade a top-ten pick? No. Therefore, asking for the second-overall pick is completely unrealistic. That hasn’t stopped Canucks fans in the past, especially when it came to getting Jack Hughes back before the 2019 NHL Draft.
Calgary Flames trade proposal
Matthew Tkachuk is one of the few players that the Devils should consider making a deal for a second-overall pick. Heck, the Devils would even consider adding something good to the deal. There’s blowing a team away with a proposal, and then there’s taking advantage of the situation. This trade would absolutely get a deal done for Tkachuk, but the Devils would come out much worse.
The Devils trading their third-best roster player who is 23 years old and just came off close to a point per game. Putting him in a Tkachuk trade takes off any first-round picks. We know Tkachuk is better, but the difference between Bratt and Tkachuk is not the second-overall pick.
Now, adding the 2023 first-round pick is just preposterous. That is a draft with game-changing talent. The Devils under no circumstances should trade away that pick unless they know they are a decent team.
Next. Slafkovsky Worthy Of Second-Overall Pick. dark
On top of that, adding Nolan Foote, Tomas Tatar, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Pavel Zacha just becomes about sending a message at this point. We know the Flames and its fanbase don’t want to lose Tkachuk, and the team should ask for the moon, but this isn’t the moon. This is asking for the moon and the sun, forcing the world to die off completely. This trade is so asinine that there are seven ways we have to say no to it. No. Nee. Nah. Non. Nein. Não. And no (except in Spanish).