The New Jersey Devils are in hard on the Johnny Gaudreau sweepstakes. It sounds like he is down to the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders as the Philadelphia Flyers appear to be out on him. With all of that, there are other things that this team needs to do to get better.
The early portions of the free agency period were good for the Devils. They actually started it off with a trade. Pavel Zacha is no longer with the New Jersey Devils as he has been traded to the Boston Bruins in a one-for-one deal.
This is a great trade for the Devils. New Jersey is adding Haula who can be a fantastic bottom-six forward. He doesn’t make his linemates better offensively which is why he is a bottom-six forward but he scores goals like some second-line forwards. This is a great move.
They also added Andrew Brunette to their coaching staff. This is a guy that is going to help New Jersey out a lot. The Florida Panthers decided not to bring him back after he was sensational in replacing Joel Quenneville last year.
Brunette’s Panthers team won the President’s Trophy after all of that drama and he did a great job leading them. They fell in the second round of the playoffs but he was still named a candidate for the NHL’s coach of the year. Each team would be better with him on their bench and he is with the Devils now.
The New Jersey Devils are making some moves to start the free agency period.
They also signed some depth on defense with Brendan smith. He is coming to the Devils on a two-year deal worth 1.1 million dollars per year. This is a nice contract for Smith who is a nice defensive defenseman that could play on the third pair right away.
We know what the big prize would be on free agent day but this is a great start. The Devils have a really nice young core budding and adding some of these guys to the organization is going to work out well for them.
Hopefully, there is more to come. If the Devils play the rest of the offseason smartly, they will become a good team in short order. It has been a while since they were really good and this is a good step towards getting them back to relevancy.