The NHL trade deadline is Friday at 3:00 pm ET. The New Jersey Devils, despite stacking some wins as of late, are comfortably outside the playoff picture. With that in mind, and the fact general manager Tom Fitzgerald is seemingly on the hot seat, how will the team approach the deadline? We asked our staff here at Devils Army Network.
James V.
The Devils are in an extremely interesting spot. Typically, when you are this far outside of a playoff spot, you will be a seller. However, the Devils do not really have any obvious sellable candidates. New Jersey only has a handful of unrestricted free agents at season’s end. Deals New Jersey would make would come in the form of either pending restricted free agents (Simon Nemec) or players with term past this season (Dougie Hamilton).
With that being said, I do think it will be a relatively quiet deadline. Any trades the team makes will likely either be minor or take the fanbase by surprise. There really are no obvious trade candidates given the current state of the team.
Joe P.
Truthfully, I don’t see the Devils doing much this deadline. The only definite player I see moving for certain is Evgenii Dadanov, who is one of the team’s few pending unrestricted free agents. There were talks of Hamilton trades early in the season but it’s hard to see a move like that happening until the offseason.
Jordan K.
Might be a boring answer, but I think the Devils stay put at the trade deadline. Obviously, they are not in a position to buy considering how bad they’ve played and how competitive the Eastern Conference is, but I don’t think they’re in a position to sell either. Their only pending unrestricted free agent is Evgenii Dadonov, and most of their core is locked up through the next few years. That, combined with a market saturated with sellers in a similar or worse position than the Devils, makes this trade deadline a bad time to sell.
I could see general manger Tom Fitzgerald trying to move Dougie Hamilton, but that would require him to waive his no-trade clause. More realistically, I think we see some moves over the offseason, when there is less pressure to sell for bad returns.
Jacob G.
The only certainty for the Devils this deadline is uncertainty. Evgenii Dadonov will almost definitely be moved as one of the team’s few pending free agents, but outside of that there’s a wide range of outcomes.
Elliotte Friedman reported that the Devils and Dougie Hamilton are trying to find a solution before the deadline that, “works for everyone” but it wouldn’t be surprising if they end up holding on to him until the offseason. At the end of the day though, I believe that Tom Fitzgerald will continue to make moves similar to trading Ondrej Palat and trading for Nick Bjugstad. Clear cap space if possible and get back players with term.
The Devils don’t need to have a full on tear it down rebuild, with the right moves this week and this summer the Devils can easily contend for a Stanley Cup again next year. Tom Fitzgerald has just got to play his cards right, and if he doesn’t, it might finally cost him his job.
Matt M.
Think it will be a fairly quiet deadline for New Jersey. The logjam at defense feels like an area to keep an eye on, with Dougie Hamilton being the biggest name on the block. A return to Boston feels like an interesting landing spot for a team looking to add depth on the back end. Could see an attempt to try and get a quick return on a player like Evgenii Dadonov or Nick Bjugstad, possibly to a team like Colorado looking to add some bottom-six depth for a cup run.
Garrett Z.
I agree with the sentiment that it’ll be a quiet deadline for the team. Could see Evgenii Dadonov being shipped out for a late-round pick. There’s a lot of buzz about Cody Glass since the team brought in Nick Bjugstad but I don’t see how the two correlate. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the organization traded one of their right-hand defensemen; Dougie Hamilton or Johnathan Kovacevic for a decent return, or left-handed defenseman Brendan Dillon. Got to think a lot of contending general manager would drool over the physical, veteran defenseman with plenty of playoff experience.