The New Jersey Devils desperately need centers this offseason. They went into last season with no center depth and relied heavily on the success of Erik Haula and Curtis Lazar to hold down the third and fourth-center roles. Both suffered early-season injuries, making them either unavailable or ineffective.
The Devils already moved on from Haula, trading him to the Nashville Predators for a fourth-round pick and an ECHL defenseman. Meanwhile, Lazar is a pending unrestricted free agent, and he’s expected to join a new team, as well.
To help with said depth, the Devils signed Juho Lammikko to help with the position. He hasn’t played in the NHL in three years and has been playing in Europe. He was a decent fourth-line center for the Vancouver Canucks, so it’s at least added depth. However, they are also not coming to an agreement with recently acquired Cody Glass, who is another player who could play center. Reports say they aren’t qualifying him and will allow him to test free agency.
We can see the Devils making moves for multiple centers this offseason. Despite already having Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier in tow, it’s hard to rely on both of them to play 82 games plus a long playoff run. Hughes has had trouble staying healthy the past two seasons, and Hischier is known to get a nick here and there.
The Devils would love to put themselves in a place where half of their forwards can play center at a moment’s notice, and they really want someone who could jump into the top six. Enter Ottawa Senators center Claude Giroux. The former Philadelphia Flyers great has been worth the money on his three-year deal, worth $6.5 million annually.
Now at 37 years old, Giroux isn’t going to get that type of deal in free agency. He’s still worth quite a bit, but his numbers continued to drop in Ottawa over the three years. He had 34 goals in his first year in Canada’s capital, but that dropped to 21 in his second year and just 15 last year.
Claude Giroux makes a ton of sense for the New Jersey Devils
Giroux is still easily a 50-point forward, and he should be in that stratosphere until he turns 40 years old. That should be really interesting to the Devils, especially for how they’d want to use Giroux. They could mix and match him anywhere in the top nine, allowing him to spend some time next to Hughes to increase his efficiency.
Giroux had a strange season, but the Devils could look at his underlying numbers and see a reason why he could have a really good season next year. He took the fewest shots he’s taken per game in his career (139 in 81 games). Even with the low output, he still shot under 11 percent.
It’s clear something wasn’t clicking between Travis Green’s system and Giroux’s skill set. We don’t foresee the same being an issue for Sheldon Keefe’s system. His two-way impact should fit right in.
This should be a priority signing for Tom Fitzgerald. Giroux wants some term, and he might be willing to take a small haircut from what he was making considering his 2024-25 impact. If the Devils can get him signed to a multi-year deal paying him between $3.5 million and $4 million, it’s a huge win. They can continue to add to the bottom six from there, but Giroux returning to the Metropolitan Division is a fitting end to his career.