Projected Cap Hit Prior To Days Remaining : $83,863,619
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This is just a rough sketch of the idea of the devils making some sort of deal with Van for DeSmith. The idea here is that it's essentially a rental for both teams, without the same long term ramifications as, for example, a deal for Gibson.
For Vancouver, you get a player with a lower cap hit, who is scoring at a much better pace and with a better history in the league, so it's an improvement on the wing for sure. On the other hand, there may be a slight reduction in the quality of backup goalie, but overall VV is not bad, has performed great the past season, and in the context of a backup goalie, should be just fine. Also at the end of the day you only have one more year of his salary after this, and in the worst case, it's probably something that isn't that difficult to get rid of.
For the Devils, this is a rental goalie who, while not a star, should nonetheless be able to put up better numbers than anyone we have - hopefully enough to get us to the playoffs. It isn't a long term solution, but at the same time, it doesn't have the type of long term consequences as, say, a trade for Gibson, which would involve giving up long term assets for a questionable goalie with many years left on his contract. This is low risk in that respect. We depreciate somewhat in terms of losing TT for Kuzmenko, but he has also put up big numbers in the past and so may be worth the flier, and in any event, it's taking from an area of abundance to address an area of need. Here we are not giving up anything of too much long term value and shouldn't be handcuffing us for a future.
Also consider that we have the Hamilton LTIR money for this seaon.
The biggest issue that I see is that Kuzmenko contract for next year. That may be too much for us to take on. But there may be some creative ways to deal with that (I've mentioned them below, but don't let those distract too much). I'd also implore people to consider the alternatives, which usually involve taking on huge contracts for longer term that we would struggle equally to accommodate.
*** This is just a thought, curious to hear feedback on how it could be improved.
The retained salary is just one concept related to the possibility of the Devils laundering Vanacek's contract through a team like Chicago to save 1 mil (for say a 4th or 5th round pick), and thus get a reciprocal retention from Vancouver. This may be important in order to work out the Devils ability to deal with the costs of Kuzmenko next year, when they will, as mentioned, face some serious cap difficulties.
See the other comment, the 1 mil retained on Kuzmenko is conditional on our ability to maybe make a three way trade with a team like chicago to retain some on Vanacek. For purposes of this discussion it could also be ignored.
Vancouver passes. In the playoffs it will be important to have a solid back-up goaltender just in case. We currently have that in DeSmith and I don't think the possible upgrade of Toffoli vs Kuzmenko make up for the downgrade in goaltending.
haha, well, I'd ask you, since you think it's a question to pose to Vancouver (as opposed to NJ), what do you think it would take? Or, better question, what would you be willing to give up?
Andrei Kuzmenko, Aatu Raty, Kirill Kudryavtsev, 2024 1st rnd. (VAN) - 2024 4th rnd. (NJD) - 2024 6th rnd. (SJS)
for
Tyler Toffoli, Michael McLeod & 2025 3rd rnd. (NJD)
: $83,863,619
Holtz,
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