New Jersey Devils: 3 Trade Deadline Deals With St. Louis Blues
By Nick Villano
The Devils are still trying to keep players within the age range of its stars, and Fitzgerald said he wanted to find players who had control. Pavel Buchnevich hits a lot of those boxes. Buchnevich was a steal of a trade when the Blues got him from the Rangers. However, finding the right price for Buchnevich is hard.
He has two more years after this one at $5.8 million per season. Right now, Buchnevich has 41 points in 39 games. He could fit on any line with the Devils. He’s currently playing with Brandon Saad and O’Reilly. The Devils have a similar line in Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt. A Bratt-Hischier-Buchnevich line could be really good for a really long time. On top of that, it would be much easier to fit Buchnevich’s salary into the future than it would for Meier, who will command $8-9 million per season.
The price is hefty, but it might not be enough. The Devils send the Blues Graeme Clarke, the 21-year-old scorer who became the Utica Comets’ best player, prospect Topas Vilen, cap dump Andreas Johnsson, and two draft picks.
Clarke is a good prospect, and Vilen is having a good season, and that’s two draft picks in this year’s draft, but it feels like it might need to be a little more. Would replacing Vilen with Shakir Mukhamadullin work? It all depends on who the Blues value, but the Devils would have the picks and prospects to make this deal work.