5 Free Agents New Jersey Devils Must Avoid At All Costs

2. Nazem Kadri

This is the latter part of the conversation. While Nazem Kadri does have a history of suspensions, that’s not really the worry here. The worry is that Kadri is set to make “top-of-the-market” money, and he was never worth that before. He’s always been a good player. He scored 30 goals in a season twice with the Toronto Maple Leafs. However, prior to this season, he never had more than 61 points. He had 87 this year in just 71 games.

Kadri was propped up by power-play points. That sounds like something the Devils could use after their dreadful power play this past season, but we’ve seen players who dominate on the power play fall back to Earth pretty quickly.

Kadri’s age is also a major detriment to the Devils. He’s already over 30. He will be 32 years old in October. This is a player who had trouble staying healthy even this season. Remember, he missed part of the Stanley Cup Final with an injury.

Reports say Kadri wants to make between $8 million and $10 million on an average salary on his next deal. That seems pretty egregious to be honest. The Devils just can’t take that kind of risk on this type of player. While they have a ton of cap space, and they really don’t have any bad contracts on the books, this would be a massive risk when there are better risks on the books.