New Jersey Devils Dodge Bullet With Kevin Fiala Trade To Los Angeles Kings
By Nick Villano
The New Jersey Devils were heavily in the race to get Kevin Fiala from the Minnesota Wild. They lost, and now he’s going to the Los Angeles Kings.
The New Jersey Devils have been “in” on a ton of players over the last few weeks. One name they’ve been tied to seemingly the longest is Kevin Fiala. The Minnesota Wild seemed like they didn’t even want to keep the winger coming off his 85-point season. The Wild have a terrible cap situation after they bought out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter last offseason, creating an insane amount of dead cap space for themselves.
This trade seemed inevitable, but reports for hours showed today was the day. The Devils were reportedly in on the trade according to multiple reports, most notably from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He also reported that Kevin Fiala is getting paid a King’s ransom. Yes, there was pun intended.
The Devils were in no shape to pay Fiala $7.9 million per season on whatever deal he’s getting. We are still waiting on the length of the deal, but we’re not expecting a restricted free agent to sign a short-term deal. Fiala got the bag from LA, and the Devils just couldn’t do that contract.
The trade was pretty decent for Minnesota, but it wasn’t some of the ridiculous prices we’ve heard. They got a first-round pick (19th overall) and University of Minnesota captain Brock Faber. Faber was the seventh-ranked prospect in the Kings’ system according to The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler. The Kings have a stocked pool, but it shows that the real price was in the contract.
To compete with this deal, the Devils likely had to add one of Alexander Holtz, Dawson Mercer, or the second-overall pick. While all those pieces are worth a ton more than either of the pieces the Kings gave up, the Devils have a drop off in assets that might be available after them. So, it’s likely the ask was more than the Devils were willing to go in both contract and trade price.
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The Devils seem like they dodged a bullet here. They have a Jesper Bratt contract to negotiate, and he seems eerily in the same position as Fiala. These are two players that have been decent up until now, but they absolutely exploded in a contract year. The Devils must take a risk on a Bratt contract, but they didn’t need to add more risk to their roster. Fiala is a great player, and whatever contract he signs isn’t going to be too bad, but it’s too much risk for the Devils to take this early in the process.