The New Jersey Devils have one of the most desirable trade assets on the market. The second-overall pick is reportedly available. It’s no surprise the Montreal Canadiens called about it.
The New Jersey Devils are looking to make the 2022-23 New Jersey Devils as good a team as possible. If that means they need to trade their second-overall pick to do so, then reports say they will do it. However, it has to be for the right price. Not many teams can afford that “right price.” The Montreal Canadiens reportedly learned that the hard way.
Marco D’Amico with Montreal Hockey Now reports that the Canadiens contacted the Devils about the pick, as most teams should, to see if they could find a deal where they would move up for the pick. The Canadiens learned the Devils weren’t interested in some of the veterans they could dangle, which apparently meant Jeff Petry or Christian Dvorak.
The article mentioned building a deal around Josh Anderson and the 26th-overall pick, but they admitted that didn’t make a lot of sense either. The Devils are looking for a top-line player or defenseman in a deal, and the only thing the Canadiens could offer there is Cole Caufield. That’s a player they aren’t trading, especially when it’s for a draft pick.
It was interesting to see that the Canadiens actually tried. It shows that teams are already making calls to the Devils to see what’s possible. Every team should do that, but it proves that most teams don’t have the goods to even keep the conversation going.
The Canadiens gave the conversation a shot, and it was apparently brought up by TVA Sports broadcaster Maxim Lapierre, but they just don’t have what it takes to make a deal happen. They want to make this trade in NHL 22, where you can trade a million middling assets for a superstar one. The Devils have no interest in what the Canadiens are putting out there. Honestly, if the Canadiens never made the Dvorak trade in the first place, they might have some leg to stand on with picks 26, 27, and 33, but that’s still a hard pill to swallow for the Devils.
It just isn’t meant to be, and that happens a lot. If a team doesn’t have the right pieces, a deal isn’t happening. The Canadiens might want the Devils pick, but they just don’t want anything they are offering.