The New Jersey Devils have set their final roster, and they are ready for the season to begin on Thursday, October 1st. Right before the final rosters were due, the Devils made a move to add goaltender Remi Poirier from the Dallas Stars through waivers. That move actually saved them around $150,000 on the cap this season because he replaced David Rittich, who is going to make $1 million this season.
And it turns out that they needed every dollar. The Devils' final roster, with Johnny Kovacevic, Seamus Casey, and Nick Bjugstad on injured reserve, is cap-compliant. However, it’s barely cap-compliant.
Here is your cap-compliant #NJDevils 2026-27 #NHL opening night roster: 14F, 6D, 3G
— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) September 28, 2026
Projected Cap Space: $52K
Projected Deadline Cap Space: $240K
Dead Cap Charges: $1.25M Bonus Carryover Overage.
They could add subsequently add Bjugstad to LTIR & gain $1.7M of space
Track… pic.twitter.com/mGvMIZlPWg
It’s no surprise that Sunny Mehta was given a terrible hand to play when he took over as GM this season. Multiple pieces on his to-do list involved getting out of bad contracts signed by Tom Fitzgerald. He got that going when he traded Jacob Markstrom and his full two-year extension to the Florida Panthers after Sergei Bobrovsky signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He also sent Simon Nemec to the Calgary Flames. While that didn’t take money off the books, as he wasn’t signed at the time, he made more than $7 million on his extension, which was a price the Devils couldn’t afford with everything Mehta wanted to do with the roster.
The Devils have enough money to afford a marketing manager on their salary cap
He added some interesting names for reasonable prices, including Anthony Mantha for $4.75 million and Luke Evangelista, who is making $3 million this year. He signed an extension, but that doesn’t raise his salary until the 2027-28 season.
The Devils also re-signed Nico Hischier and Arseny Gritsyuk, but Hischier is playing one more season on his $7.25 million salary that was originally signed back with the late Ray Shero.
The Devils are now sitting with just $52,000 in cap space. That’s the salary of a McDonald’s assistant manager, not a hockey player. Even if the Devils keep that space open until the trade deadline, they can only spend $240,000.
We see Sunny Mehta making moves to keep the salaries flowing. He wants to have a little more flexibility than he has right now, but the roster is in a good place.
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