Team: 2023-24 New Jersey Devils

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 12, 2023

Published: Jun. 13, 2023

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Overall Philosophy:
Tried to be realistic and take a relatively conservative approach with what the rest of this offseason could look like, prioritizing the Devil's ability to contend medium to long term over just next year despite their strong past season. This means maintaining cap flexibility to hopefully to avoid bridge deals for the next crop of young players coming off their ELC's in Mercer/Hughes/Nemec, so I have the Devs skipping out for the most part on this year's relatively weak class of UFAs and filling the roster openings with prospects or short term veteran trade options.


Trades:
- Niederreiter for Sharangovich, Blackwood, 2024 5th
Curious if Niederreiter would be available considering the Jets just acquired him at the TDL, but I think he's a sensible middle six option for the Devs to hopefully replace Tatar's production. The Jets are obviously a team in flux, but seem reluctant to rebuild so I think a hockey trade for a more controllable player in Sharangovich gives them more flexibility to "kick the can down the road" per se and assess whether they truly need to retool/rebuild. Blackwood has little value, but him going to the Jets kind of makes sense since they don't have a backup and with the uncertainty around Helley.

- Grzelcyk for Boqvist, 2023 4th
I think Grzelcyk would be an intriguing candidate as a stopgap option to allow Nemec to develop another year in the AHL, while still allowing Nemec to have a clear path to the top 6 next season. It's a bit difficult to get a read on his value imo, since he had decent numbers on a cracked team but played a sheltered role under Montgomery. In a vacuum, I think he would have more value based on just his numbers, but the Bruins have obvious cap issues and his cap hit of 3.7 mil is high for a 3rd pair D. The main asset here for the B's is the 3.7 mil in cap space freed up, but Boqvist would still serve as a young center who'd only garner ~league min on his next contract. Seems like Grzelcyk also played a good amount of RD this past season, even though he's left-handed.

1.

2.

3.