The New Jersey Devils have hired Sunny Mehta, and now they are off to the races. It’s time to make moves and save this team. Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier are in their primes. Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier are good top-six wingers (most of the time). Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec, and Anton Silayev are all young, former top-10 drafted defensemen. They have decent depth pieces signed long term in Brett Pesce, Jonas Siegenthaler, Connor Brown, and Jake Allen.
There’s a foundation here for a good team. Unfortunately, there are a few holes on this roster that have upended a few years, and they were holes Tom Fitzgerald wasn’t willing to pay up to fill. One was a self-inflicted wound, as Jacob Markstrom fell off a cliff this past season. Another was the state of the defense, focusing on defensive defenseman making too much money and an inability to trade for Quinn Hughes.
One place Fitzgerald has struggled is getting a top-six forward who worked with this group. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Think about all of the attempts. In the past six seasons, Fitzgerald tried Andreas Johnsson, Tomas Tatar, Erik Haula, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Toffoli, Stefan Noesen, and Evgenii Dadonov. That doesn’t even include internal options he inherited or drafted like Nikita Gusev, Alex Holtz, Dawson Mercer, and Pavel Zacha, among others.
This year, we heard he was once again trying to fix the issue. He was in on Jordan Kyrou, Steven Stamkos, Ryan O’Reilly, and Bryan Rust at different points of last season. However, it was the trade that was on the table with the Toronto Maple Leafs that had everyone intrigued.
Ryan Novozinsky: Two people with knowledge of the situation told NJ .com that the Devils’ interest in Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies is “very real” - nj dot com (3/25)
— NHL Rumour Report (@NHLRumourReport) March 29, 2026
Matthew Knies appears to be the exact player, at least on paper, the Devils would want in their top six. He’s big but can score. His offense comes with a little snarl. He isn’t afraid to scrap, as we saw with his tilt with Nico Hischier earlier in the season.
However, there are issues with the acquisition. The Maple Leafs have bigger issues with sticking up for teammates and getting pushed around than the Devils do. In fact, it was a main narrative around Craig Berube’s team.
The other issue is that nobody who discussed this trade is here anymore.
Tom Fitzgerald was let go. So was then-Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving. Mehta came to the Devils, and while he might like Knies, he probably doesn’t want to pay the price it takes to get him.
On top of that, we see a new GM in Toronto looking to keep Knies and building around him, or at least making him a part of the solution.
There are too many hoops to jump through to make this work without Knies pushing for it to happen. Even if Knies wants out, which there has been no indication that’s the case, other teams would be willing to pay more than Mehta would right off the bat.
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