The New Jersey Devils have been trying to make moves this offseason, and while they made strides fixing the bottom six and solidifying the goaltender position, this team looks like a slightly better version of last year’s team. Many fans expected the Devils to make moves towards true contention. Nothing like that has happened.
While we like the Connor Brown and Evgenii Dadonov signings and the Jake Allen and Cody Glass re-signings, they don’t move the needle. The Devils still have a major hole at top-six forward and third-line center. Unfortunately, they can’t do anything to fix it right now.
The Devils still need to re-sign Luke Hughes to a long-term contract. They are having trouble making moves beyond that.
It’s probably because the Devils have just $6.9 million in cap space according to Puck Pedia. If the Devils sign Hughes for as long as they should sign him (eight years), then there’s no way he will sign for less than $7 million.
There are a few moves the Devils can make to be cap compliant. Johnny Kovacevic is going to miss some time, so they can put him on long-term injured reserve to open some cap space. The most popular opportunity is making a trade. There are three players who have been talked about the most: Dawson Mercer, Dougie Hamilton, and Ondrej Palat.
Most know that Palat is the one the Devils would like to trade the most. He didn't have a good season under Sheldon Keefe in their first year, but they probably still wanted to get something in return for Palat. If they are holding out for a team to take on the full contract AND give an asset to the Devils, they might be stuck waiting.
Ondrej Palat's contract ranked as one of the worst in the NHL
A new ranking from Bleacher Report's Lyle Richardson is not going to help the Devils' case. He ranked Palat's contract as one of the very worst in the NHL.
Palat has two years left on his contract with a $6 million cap hit per season. Richardson points out that Palat's numbers have gone down since he suffered a major groin injury in his first season with the Devils. At 34 years old, it's not like he's going to have a significant turnaround.
We once thought the Devils would get a decent asset for Palat after the market materialized. It never did. The market is quiet, as it usually is after the first week of July. However, if Palat's deal is being called one of the worst in the league, it's likely it will stay on the Devils books for another year.