Sad news: The head coach of New Jersey Devils shed tears as two of his best players made a final decision to leave the team

Sad news: The head coach of New Jersey Devils shed tears as two of his best players made a final decision to leave the team

Less than one month remains until the NHL trade deadline in 2022. This article rates 28 New Jersey Devils players according to their estimated trade value for the approaching deadline and attempts to provide a rationale for each ranking as trade rumors pick up steam.

Less than a month remains until the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline, which is set for March 21 at 3 PM ET. In my piece from last week, I gave a sneak peek at the deadline, which is in approximately a month. Put succinctly, anticipate the New Jersey Devils to be sellers once more. I’ve chosen to revive something I did in previous seasons—a list of Devils players on the club ordered by perceived trade value—even though no one really requested one.

Consideration should be given to the potential return a player would receive in the event that he is dealt by the Devils. Recall that nobody is totally untouchable in this league—Wayne Gretzky was moved here. Having said that, I believe that certain people are currently actively involved in this group. Before we trade anyone, let’s review who is on the list and where. March has arrived already.

Rules
In this post, I am not advocating, disputing, announcing, or insisting that General Manager Tom Fitzgerald and his team trade everyone, nobody, or any particular player. I’m not advocating, arguing, declaring, or pressuring the team to deal with the guys who are worth more than others. For the Devils, any deal is assumed to make some sense. Getting draft picks, prospects, or even players to support the team in 2022–2023 and beyond is one way to do that. This is an experiment to see how the rest of the league could see each player’s trade value.

This list is ranked. I believe it would take more for a team to wrest them out of New Jersey, the higher the position. This isn’t a ranking of the team’s greatest players, in my opinion. Whether Jesper Bratt is enjoying a better season than Jack Hughes is a topic of debate between us. Although I believe he is, my opinion does not imply that Bratt will be worth more in the deal than Hughes. Perceived value is influenced by many more variables than just an entity’s current performance. A player’s worth in a possible trade can be determined by a number of factors, including their age, cap hit, contract wage structure, position, history, present role in New Jersey, and even skill level. Once more, this is not a ranking where Player X is superior to Player Y. This relates to the idea of trade value.

That gets me to my usual disclaimer: I am not Elliott Friedman, I am not a general manager of the NHL, and I am not a false insider like all those accounts on Twitter that make people think things they don’t have any basis in. I blog about hockey. All of this is my perspective. I’m willing to be proven wrong. Therefore, feel free to disagree and explain why you believe a player is worth more or less than I do. The comments area is meant for just that.

I’m restricting this thread to all Devils who are currently in the organization and have played at least five games with the team this season in order to prevent it from getting out of hand. This indicates that in this post, I will be ranking 24 skaters and 4 goalies. This indicates that Tyce Thompson, A.J. Greer, Nolan Foote, Chase DeLeo, Fabian Zetterlund, and Kevin Bahl are not included in this post. They failed to meet the game’s cutoff time. Dallas recently grabbed Marian Studenic (17 GP) off waivers. Nor does he appear in this post. Miles Wood and Jonathan Bernier are also not included. Bernier is out for the season due to hip surgery, while Wood hasn’t even participated in team practices yet. I’m going to presume that no team will transfer real assets for any of those two, even if wounded players can be traded if it is agreed upon. Included in this post are Janne Kuokkanen and Mackenzie Blackwood, who are both on injured reserve and, I assume, will be back in the New Jersey starting lineup come season.

Moving from the least valuable to the most valuable, let’s examine it in reverse order. Every contract detail comes from CapFriendly.

Tier 1: Value at Minimum “You desire him? Yes. For what purpose? Well, anything.
Jon Gillies, #28, 2021- 2021–2022 Pay: $750,000, Subject to Unrestricted Free Agent Status

In what sense does Jon Gillies rank lowest on this list? Easy. The Devils acquired him in order to give him future consideration. which essentially means nothing material. Gillies has had the chance to demonstrate that he is at the very least a capable backup goalie. He’s not, even after thirteen games with an overall save percentage of 88.4%. In fact, rather than dividing the starts as they had done the week before, head coach Lindy Ruff and his coaching staff decided to play Nico Daws back-to-back earlier this week. This suggests that Gillies will be Daws’ backup in his rookie season of professional hockey, if he is at least passable. Daws is 21 years old. Considering that experienced goalie Alex Stalock was just dealt for future considerations, I find it difficult to believe Gillies will receive much more than that, if anything at all. He is therefore at the bottom of this year’s ranking.