It’s going to be a busy offseason for the New Jersey Devils, but we’ve already seen the rumor mill go crazy after a Slovakian publication claimed Simon Nemec asked for a trade. Multiple outlets have reported that this wasn’t true, but it was always a possibility that Nemec was going to be traded.
The Devils only have less than $12 million in cap space, and they have to pay both Nemec and Arseny Gritsyuk, who are restricted free agents. They also need to add depth at both forward and defense while adding a scorer in the top six. Basically, that $12 million is already spoken for twice over.
The Devils want a great forward, and the Devils need to make money happen. They can do that by trading Nemec, at least to start.
When the Devils were discussing a Quinn Hughes trade with the Vancouver Canucks, Nemec was always a part of those conversations. The trade was going to be huge, and the deal the Minnesota Wild eventually made for the third Hughes brother had the equivalent of four first-round picks, but Nemec would have been the star of the return.
As a former second-overall pick with some NHL success already, he still holds a ton of value. Most teams will be looking to see what the price to get him, both his contract and the trade package, looks like this offseason. One surprising team on that list is the Vancouver Canucks.
The Canucks are an interesting home for Simon Nemec
The Canucks are not looking to compete next season. If they say they are looking to compete, they are lying. There are rumors that it’s a total teardown after the Hughes trade, including a possible Elias Pettersson trade. The Canucks have already traded Hughes, J.T. Miller, Connor Garland, Tyler Myers, and Kiefer Sherwood in recent years.
Nemec makes sense for the Canucks. They could give him a full eight-year contract, hoping he plays through the rebuild until the Canucks are competitive again. He is going to likely be overpaid to start, but the Canucks want to hit the cap floor. Then, when the contract looks better in Nemec’s prime, the Canucks know the cap is going up, and the contract won’t look bad. In fact, it might look great.
The conversation then turns to compensation. What would the Devils even want from the Canucks?
Brock Boeser is an interesting player, but it doesn’t feel like the type of move Sunny Mehta makes with a premium asset like Nemec. Maybe he targets Marco Rossi, who is an analytics darling and would fit perfectly on the Devils to give them depth at the position.
The Devils likely ask about Zeev Buium, who Tom Fitzgerald left on the table at the 2024 NHL Draft so he could take Anton Silayev. We think the Canucks would say no to that, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
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