Money-in, money-out for the New Jersey Devils
The Chris Johnston Show: Chris Johnston, talking about the New Jersey Devils looking to add, but are a bot handcuffed, given their cap situation. Moving the contracts of Dougie Hamilton and Ondrej Palat have come up. They might have to move Hamilton to add up front.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Julian McKenzie: “One team I’m also intrigued about that is very much on your trade board is the New Jersey Devils. Obviously a loser in the Quinn Hughes sweepstakes. We’ve seen reports of a potential deal that could have been out there, but it seems as if they just were not able to clear out cap space to make that work.
I mentioned Ondrej Palat. He’s number six on your board. Dougie Hamilton is also on the board as well. What do you think could be in store for the New Jersey Devils?
Johnston: Well, you know, I think that it’s true that they could use, you know, clearing out some, some cap space in addition to trying to improve their roster, right? And you know, where they’re at with Palat is, you know, he’s still pretty defensively sound player, but he’s not bringing the offense he once did.
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And you know, he’s just set a stage where he’s not putting up points to justify a $6 million cap hit. And you know, in some cases that might be okay, but when your team is capped out, and you’re looking for ways to squeeze more out of your roster, I think that’s where his name comes into play.
You know, it’s certainly not, he’s a basically a no-maintenance guy with tremendous respect around the league and experience, obviously, from all those years in Tampa and the cup runs he had with the Lightning. But, you know, it just might be getting to the time where that, that’s a piece they can play to create cap room.
You know, I don’t know that anything’s going to happen with Hamilton. I’ll be clear on that. I mean, he’s, he’s got a big cap hit. I don’t think it’s a case where the Devils are just trying to unload him. I just think it’s a possibility, given, you know some of the other players they have on that blue line, right?
You know, Brett Pesce is coming back from injury. Obviously, they’ve signed Luke Hughes to his big deal. They’ve got Simon Nemec there. You know, they’ve, they’ve potentially got an ability, if they start moving money around, to remove someone like Hamilton and use that money to augment their forward group.
So I think what the Devils have is, is, you know, a fair bit of internal pressure right now to try to look for improvement. I mean, you know, let’s, let’s make no bones about it, the season turned unfortunately on that, tha,t that accident that, you know, took Jack Hughes out of the lineup, or, you know, cut his hand and needed surgery. And, you know, he’s, he’s kind of the straw that serves a drink there.
They’ve had a number of other sort of situations too. I mean, like a lot of teams, and think injuries have been a factor in where they’re at. So, you know, there’s, there’s a real push to make the playoffs for the Devils.
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And so I think that the, you know, when I look at as a whole, you know, they’re going to try to, they’re going to try to add pieces specifically a forward. And you know, to do that, as it would have with the Quinn Hughes trade, they might have to also clear out some salaries.
So, you know, everything is all kind of tied together there. And you know, certainly, that’s why you see a couple Devils players on the board? It’s just because they could be part of, you know, some, some falling dominoes here, if they can, can line up a trade.
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