New Jersey Devils Learn They Will Have Even Less Cap Space In 2024-25

The New Jersey Devils need as much money as possible to improve a flawed roster. After coming into the 2023-24 season all of the hype, the team might have been the most disappointing in the league. The Eastern Conference was awful, at least at the bottom. Still, the Devils weren't even in the conversation by the end of the season.

The Devils have to go back to the drawing board on just about everything. The defense was a main proponent for the Devils issues, and the goaltending is an obvious problem. Even the offense, which should be a given, couldn't produce when it mattered most. When one star was scoring at will, the others turtled. There was no consistency, and it led to the Devils nursing injuries and playing golf at the end of April while their rivals fight for the Stanley Cup.

Tom Fitzgerald is looking at how he can get a star in net, some help on defense, and a few replacements on offense. He needs to find someone to replace Michael McLeod, who's almost definitely not coming back to New Jersey after his sexual assault allegations and arrest. The Devils also might try to re-sign Tyler Toffoli, who is an unrestricted free agent.

According to CapFriendly, the Devils are spending about $66 million on their current roster players next season. The salary cap is expected to rise to $87.5 million, $4 million more than this year's cap. However, the Devils will have less than $20 million in space. That's because of a few reasons. It's the last year the Devils are paying a $250,000 penalty for the canceled Ilya Kovalchuk contract (thank goodness).

However, the biggest impact to the cap is coming in the form of overages. Frank Seravalli with Daily Faceoff reports the Devils are going to lose just over $1.5 million in salary cap overages. This is mostly due to players on entry-level contracts hitting their bonuses. Five players on the Devils played all 82 games this season. Three of them (Dawson Mercer, Luke Hughes, and Alexander Holtz) are still on their ELC.

The Devils don't have a ton of internal contracts to deal with. Mercer is probably the biggest one, and he had a down season which will probably save the Devils money in the long run. Other than that, the Devils are looking for external upgrades. Of course, they will be spending a lot of money, but they only have limited ways to create more cap space.