Meier for Guentzel with extension soon

watch the monahan trades coming since u just lost some C depth

If Montreal is paying the same price as the paid for him.

what

We just got Meier…not selling him.

If Habs are okay with same price as when they got him

One would assume that Fitz only did this in preparation for a trade that was presumably all but finalized.

Goalie: Gibson/Markstrom
Center depth: Lindholm/Henrique
Good left defense, tons potentially available from fringe playoff teams, but unknown as of yet.

I think defense will be the focus…I am guessing it’s we will spend some assets to address.

We have plenty of centers already on roster…Jack, Nico, Mercer, Haula, Lazar, Tierney…so I don’t think we would spend a lot on adding a 3C or 4C. Maybe we snag Bonino off waivers or similar move.

Goalies will be off-season fix.

Gibson is too injury prone, I can see Markstrom though.
Henrique could be a good option also over Lindholm as Lindholm this year isnt doing great.
Defense, LD is prob whats available pretty much anywhere

Oh no now we only have Mercer Haula Hischier Hughes and Lazar.

Needs:
Goalie
LD (Also should kill penalties)
Quality PK forward (and just overall depth to deal with injury

In terms of forwards:

A claim on Bonino for the PK and forward depth
Henrique
Jake Evans
Trenin

Any others you have in mind

I mean, failing to address the goalie issue prior to the TDL seems like throwing in the towel on the season, at which point, why bother putting Dougie on LTIR?

How about Mario Ferraro and Kaapo Kahkonen for the 2024 1st (converts to the 2025 1st if the Devils make the ECF as the Sharks would already have the 2024 1st in that scenario) and the Devils 2024 3rd. Ferraro and Kahkonen’s combined cap hit is $6 million.

I’d like to see a veteran dman or two.

Henrique would be great, but only if cheap, which is probably unlikely. A big lefty for bottom six maybe (although Willman is starting to grow on me). Bonino, Evans, Trenin…I dunno.

I don’t think any goalies that will actually help us will be available.

What goalie is available that would improve our team? It’s a bunch of unwanted back-ups and maybes. No different than what we have now.

Lankinen
Allen
Kähkönen
Nedeljkovic

All worth to pursue and shouldn't be too expensive to acquire.

Possibly. That is probably the type of move we do if we do add a goalie. Somewhat similar to Gavrikov/Korpisalo to LAK last year. Our GM has talked often about his preference for dman as “long and mobile” and I don’t think Ferraro checks either box. But wouldn’t rule it out.

Kinda proving my point though, no? None of those guys are difference makers or 1A goalies.

I think goaltending is probably overstated as our weakness…and puck control out of d-zone is understated as our weakness. Put the same quality chances against on any of those goalies, they’re not going to change much.

Are you implying Nemec for Allen and Anderson?

I'd offer approximately a 3rd for Henrique today with no retention. If they bite, they bite (saves them about 2 mill in real money compared to retaining 50% at deadline). If they decline then move onto the next target.

I think that swapping Vanecek's games out for the rest of the season for any of the guys mentioned above would generate a handful of wins on its own.

In theory I don't see an issue in trading an increase in high danger chances for much less overall volume of scoring chances against, which I believe the Devils have done this year.
But Vanecek is probably the completely wrong goalie to play behind a defence making that type of tradeoff.
Particularly Kähkönen and Allen profile quite perfectly for this Devils team in that regard.

As for the defense, I'm a big believer in what the Devils have in the organization already.
Between Hatakka, Misyul and Vilén I think there's enough talent to keep the Devils alive into the playoffs.

Forward corps is starting to worry me however with the McLeod situation and all.
Think there are a quite a few middle 6 rentals out there that would make a lot of sense.

You know I am

Kent (who wins) turned down Nemec/1st for Anderson (who hits) already once. So probably costs more.

Looking at it tho if the devils get healthy look at the metro:

Rags and Canes are in

Islanders are old, not that good and falling apart
Washington has been riding a hot 30 year old goalie who's been a career backup, also a very old team that the long grind of a season should wear down
Philly just lost their starting goalie and I don't think it takes much for them to start selling
Pittsburgh is good, but we're ahead right now and again a very old team.

If it were simply a goaltending problem, we would see a drop in saves on all shots against. Medium and low danger save percentage would drop. Soft goals would be going in…like they did in 2021-22. But they aren’t really.

It’s the quality of our possession that worries me. Throwing pucks out of zone…or passing into guys skates…doesn’t help us get our 5v5 mojo back. Add dmen with ability to exit d-zone cleanly, we maintain possession, start transition, creates more quality for…reduces quality against.