The New Jersey Devils are expected to be without stud fourth-line center Curtis Lazar for a while after the team announced on Oct. 31 that Lazar had undergone a procedure on his left knee and would be out for an indefinite period of time.
Lazar himself already posted from his personal X account that he is "already looking forward to seeing you all later on this season," though neither the Devils nor the player himself have indicated when later this season will be. And based on the nature of Lazar's injury, it will likely be months and not weeks.
With fellow fourth-line forward Nathan Bastian injured, the Devils are in a real bind when it comes to bottom-six forward depth. Is boxer-on-skates Kurtis MacDermid, a player who plays forward and defense but excels at neither position, a suitable replacement for Bastian, particularly when it comes to killing penalties and not being a defensive zone liability? Probably not.
Is Justin Dowling, a career AHLer with 102 total NHL games to his name at the age of 34, a good enough answer for a Devils team, and perhaps a general manager, desperate to prove that the 2023 playoff run wasn't a fluke? That, too, is unlikely.
The Devils already had an opportunity to claim forward Nils Aman on waivers from Vancouver, but they and 30 other NHL teams chose not to, and now the 6-foot-2, 24-year-old Swede has been safely stashed away in AHL Abbotsford.
Therefore, if the Devils want to add an NHL-caliber center to replace the injured Lazar, they will need to turn to the NHL trade market to do so.
5.) Jake Evans, Montreal Canadiens
The Montreal Canadiens are having a horrendous start to the 2024-25 regular season. Budding superstar Juraj Slafkovsky has already missed some time due to injury, and sharpshooter Patrik Laine has yet to appear in a game after suffering a knee injury towards the end of the NHL preseason. Combine the injuries up front with the lackluster defensive play, and you get a Canadiens team that sits 30th in the NHL with a record of 4-7-1. The Habs' minus-17 goal differential is the second-worst mark in the NHL, trailing the lowly San Jose Sharks by just one.
Veteran center Jake Evans is a plausible trade candidate early in the year. Evans has one year remaining on the three-year, $5.1 million contract he signed with Montreal on Oct. 3, 2021, and carries an affordable $1.7 million cap hit.
The 28-year-old center is currently averaging a career-high 1.76 points per 60 minutes, so it is likely the Canadiens will not want to sell Evans for cheap, especially so early into the season, as teams always grow more desperate towards the NHL trade deadline in March.
Evans has scored north of 25 points twice in his career and potted a personal best 13 goals in 72 games back in the 2021-22 season, so there is some offensive upside here with the limited ice he gets. Comparatively, Lazar scored a career-high 25 points with the Devils last season and had never produced more than 20 in a single season before that.
Evans will undoubtedly be a popular name in trade talks as teams continue to evaluate their current squads, but the Devils should be among the first to register interest if they want to remain competitive in the playoff hunt through the winter.