Finding Right Price for Timo Meier To Make New Jersey Devils, San Jose Sharks Happy
The name Timo Meier has been floating around for a long time, tied specifically to the New Jersey Devils. Fans have been on watch for the better part of a month now, and things will possibly be coming to a conclusion soon. Right now, the Devils are heavily linked and are possibly the front runners, but the other teams in on this, at least rumored to be, are the Carolina Hurricanes and St. Louis Blues.
From the Canes perspective, they are 100% in their window and are a top-five team in the league that should be very dangerous in the playoffs. Adding more offense and he could put them over the top. The Blues just moved some big names and have the space for a “re-tool,” though it doesn’t seem like a great idea to buy big when you are not going to make the playoffs.
They should keep selling off assets and are nowhere near one player from making it. One can argue with some good points that he wouldn’t even put them back to where they were when they had Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan O’Reilly. There is also the fact that trading for an RFA as a bad team is super risky, so you will need to sell him on the retool or overpay massively to keep him long-term and hope he is fine to go to a team that isn’t a winner right away. What they are doing though is probably driving up the price, and the Sharks should send them a thank-you letter.
The word around right now is also that the Sharks want Dawson Mercer in the deal and that is the holdup. Mercer is not just hot right now, he is a legit top-six player at the age of 20, was a half-point-per-game guy as a rookie, and could have more points in his first two seasons than Nico Hischier did.
He shows up for every game, much like the now captain Hischier did early on and plays with the heart and determination a team needs while defending like a more veteran player. Moving a guy who will be at worst a better skating prime Adam Henrique for another eight years would be an awful move and could bite them very quickly, especially if he hits his ceiling of being a 70-point guy that plays solid both ways.
It is also worth noting that he doesn’t get much powerplay time, and if he did, he would have a fair bit more points. He is currently tied for 10th on the team averaging 1:15 on the powerplay per game, tied with Miles Wood.
As for Meier himself, he fits on this team incredibly well. If the Devils don’t overpay, he is the perfect fit. He is pretty big, decently physical, and has put up consistent points for years while being only 26. The asking price being high is not at all shocking. He is a good possession player and would fit on the first line with Hischier and Bratt for a long time and complete the Devils’ top six to the point that they might not need to even look at a forward for half a decade.
One of the problems with him is that he is an RFA who could walk himself to free agency in a year and would be making $10 million next season just on the qualifying offer. In any trade scenario, the Devils need to think about if they can lock him up and if the price is right because teams that win cups have never had 10 million dollar players.
The key to this deal is to move out futures and not touch the roster too much. The Sharks are looking to bolster a lacking prospect pool, especially on the defensive side of things. The best prospect they have is William Eklund, who played with Alexander Holtz in Sweden. His name has been in trade rumors for as long as they have been out there and it makes perfect sense why. He is the #1 forward prospect and getting some likely chemistry can only be good from the Sharks’ perspective.
They also would be getting another first-round prospect in Shakir Mukhamadullin, who probably doesn’t fit on this roster with Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec coming in. On the Sharks, he could very easily help their prospect pool look much better. Sharks fans would probably complain at first, but getting essentially three first-round talents for a guy is a big haul and a great way to start a rebuild.
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If San Jose wants to play hardball with it moving closer to the deadline, the Devils should just walk away and not make the panic move just because the Rangers got better. This team’s window just opened this season, and we still have a long ways to go despite being legitimately competitive. While it would move the needle this season, it might only be a small upgrade in a few years if the wrong piece is moved. There is also the chance that they could get him for less in the offseason or nothing in two years if he sees success and wants to play with Hischier for a Stanley Cup.