How the New Jersey Devils Can Make the Salary Cap Work if They Make a Big Splash at the Trade Deadline

The New Jersey Devils for the first season in a while are in a position of relevance as we march towards the NHL trade deadline. While the roster has had positive results this season, most, if not all teams that are in the playoff chase are looking to assemble the best roster possible before battling it out for the Stanley Cup. Yesterday, Jared wrote a piece about Timo Meier of the San Jose Sharks being a possible trade target for the Devils; Mike had previously written about if the Devils could fit a player such as Meier into their cap structure. Today, I’m going to at least sort of build off of both of those articles and discuss whether or not the Devils could make an acquisition of that salary size work without sacrificing any long-term key pieces.

The Plan

For the purposes of this hypothetical situation, there are 3 goals to achieve:

• Fit a player, such as Timo Meier, into the team’s long-term cap structure.
• Don’t sacrifice any core players, such as Jesper Bratt.
• Be at least somewhat realistic with salaries.

With that being said, in this hypothetical situation, we’re going to assume that Alex Holtz and Miles Wood are part of the trade for Meier. I think Wood could be a more attractive option for the Sharks than a player like Andreas Johnsson, and with him more than likely wanting a salary increase, I’m not sure he comes back to New Jersey next season anyway.

The Current Cap Implications

For players signed beyond this season that are currently on the roster, we have:

• Jack Hughes ($8 million per season cap charge)
• Nico Hischier ($7.25 million)
• Ondrej Palat ($6 million)
• Dawson Mercer ($895,000)
• Dougie Hamilton ($9 million)
• Jonas Siegenthaler ($3.4 million)
• John Marino ($4.4 million)
• Brendan Smith ($1.1 million)
• Nikita Okhotiuk ($790,000)
• Vitek Vanecek ($3.4 million)

Total Cap: $44.235 million

Approximate Cap Space: $39.265 million

The Long-Term Plan: Minor Re-Signings

If we were to look at possible lines based on the signed players, we have this skeleton to build on:

Ondrej Palat - Nico Hischier - Right Wing

Left Wing - Jack Hughes - Right Wing

Left Wing - Center - Dawson Mercer

Left Wing - Center - Right Wing

Extra Forward - Extra Forward

Jonas Siegenthaler - Dougie Hamilton

Left Defense - John Marino

Brendan Smith - Right Defense

Nikita Okhotiuk

Vitek Vanecek

Goaltender

So now, we have to fill in all the empty spots. Let’s start with some restricted free agents that shouldn’t cost too much. I’m not going to speculate on the length of these contracts, but based on the roles these players play, I’m guessing they would mostly be 1-2 year deals:

Michael McLeod: $1.8 million

Nathan Bastian: $1.8 million

Jesper Boqvist: $1.5 million

Fabian Zetterlund: $1.5 million

Total Cap Additions: $6.6 million

Current Cap Total: $50.835 million

Space Remaining: $32.665 million

Rationale: I think I might even be generous with some of these estimates, but based on player performance and roles, I don’t think any of these guys make more than my guesses. While each of these players should be with the team for at least one more season, none of them are putting up numbers that should see their salary take a big jump into the $2 million or above range.

As a quick aside, even if some of these numbers are generous, you might think some of my later approximations are low. I decided that these numbers will balance each other one way or another, so feel free to adjust them as you see fit if you would like to make your own projections.

The Long-Term Plan: Call Ups and Rookies

Okay, we add in a few more players, and now we’re left with:

Ondrej Palat - Nico Hischier - Right Wing

Left Wing - Jack Hughes - Right Wing

Left Wing - Center - Dawson Mercer

Jesper Boqvist - Michael McLeod - Nathan Bastian

Fabian Zetterlund - Extra Forward

Jonas Siegenthaler - Dougie Hamilton

Left Defense - John Marino

Brendan Smith - Right Defense

Nikita Okhotiuk

Vitek Vanecek

Goaltender

Still nine holes in the roster to fill, but better than 13 that we were looking at before. We can help to fill out the roster with players in the organization on their entry level deals that are looking like they can make an impact at the NHL level:

Nico Daws/Akira Schmid: $850,000

Simon Nemec/Luke Hughes: $950,000

Nolan Foote: $865,000

Total Cap Additions: $2.665 million

Current Cap Total: $53.5 million

Space Remaining: $30 million

Rationale: I rounded a couple of number for cleanliness sake here, but none of the rounding should impact the Devils’ ability to be cap compliant. Foote has shown flashes of promise and wouldn’t be out of place as an extra forward. If he blossoms into an everyday player, even better. The team also could see which AHL goalie deserves to be in the NHL as a backup, and can part ways with Mackenzie Blackwood after this season to save some money. I’m going to add Schmid into the roster due to his performance this season. Similarly, they can see which of their promising young defenders earns a roster spot in training camp. For the sake of the article, I’m going with Nemec, just because of the amount of experience the Devils have on the right side and that he has already turned pro.

The Long-Term Plan: Bigger Deals

Making the additions from the last section, we now have:

Ondrej Palat - Nico Hischier - Right Wing

Left Wing - Jack Hughes - Right Wing

Left Wing - Center - Dawson Mercer

Jesper Boqvist - Michael McLeod - Nathan Bastian

Fabian Zetterlund - Nolan Foote

Jonas Siegenthaler - Dougie Hamilton

Left Defense - John Marino

Brendan Smith - Simon Nemec

Nikita Okhotiuk

Vitek Vanecek

Akira Schmid

So now, let’s start filling in the big gaps, while also hitting on the top two goals from the plan section:

Jesper Bratt: $8.5 million

Timo Meier: $8.5 million

Total Cap Additions: $17 million

Current Cap Total: $70.5 million

Space Remaining: $13.5 million

Rationale: Okay, this is where I might get some pushback, but I would argue that the team would say they’re not going to pay much more money than Jack Hughes is earning to players who are inferior to him. Even if you want to go more towards $9 million for each, the Devils should still slide in with that much room to spare after I finish all of my projections. Meier and Bratt slide into the top lines, so now we have:

Ondrej Palat - Nico Hischier - Timo Meier

Jesper Bratt - Jack Hughes - Right Wing

Left Wing - Center - Dawson Mercer

Jesper Boqvist - Michael McLeod - Nathan Bastian

Fabian Zetterlund - Nolan Foote

Jonas Siegenthaler - Dougie Hamilton

Left Defense - John Marino

Brendan Smith - Simon Nemec

Nikita Okhotiuk

Vitek Vanecek

Akira Schmid

Four spots left to fill, $13.5 million to do so; how do we finish this out?

The Long-Term Plan: Re-signings Through Free Agency

So for this piece, our last four signings are free agents of varying degrees. We have one RFA in Yegor Sharangovich, who I think could get a slightly larger deal than the players in the minor re-signings tier:

Yegor Sharangovich: $2.5 million

Tomas Tatar: $3 million

Erik Haula: $2 million

UFA Defender $4 million

Total Cap Additions: $11.5 million

Current Cap Total: $82 million

Space Remaining: $1.5 million

Rationale: It’s tight, but doable. Additionally, for anyone who doesn’t want one of these players back (or doesn’t see them coming back at that price) you can go get a different UFA or bring another Utica player into the equation and have either them, Zetterlund or Foote slide in as a regular. As per the UFA defender, I’m not quite sure who the Devils might look at for a target, but they can find someone in the “John Marino price range” and bring them in to play on the middle pair. Again, if you’re not sold on anyone of use being available, feel free to bring Luke Hughes up or to re-sign Kevin Bahl at a lower cap hit and plug him into the lineup.

We finish with the following:

Ondrej Palat - Nico Hischier - Timo Meier

Jesper Bratt - Jack Hughes - Tomas Tatar

Yegor Sharangovich - Erik Haula- Dawson Mercer

Jesper Boqvist - Michael McLeod - Nathan Bastian

Fabian Zetterlund - Nolan Foote

Jonas Siegenthaler - Dougie Hamilton

UFA Defender - John Marino

Brendan Smith - Simon Nemec

Nikita Okhotiuk

Vitek Vanecek

Akira Schmid

Not a bad lineup if I do say so myself. Now I can already hear people up in arms about Dawson Mercer needing a new deal after next season. Firstly, I don’t see him making even Palat money on his second deal, and the Devils will have $2.3 million of dead cap (from the Cory Schneider and Janne Kuokkanen buyouts); combine that with the expected cap jump of $4 million and the Devils will have more than enough money to afford Mercer. They’ll have to look at re-signing Vanecek the yera after that, but if the team continues to manage their cap well, and cycle in entry level deals, they shouldn’t have any major problems anytime soon.

Your Take

Okay, we’ve gone through a lot of numbers, made some educated guesses and attempted to fit two high profile upcoming free agents in Bratt and a possibly acquired Meier onto Jersey’s Team. While the numbers may not be 100% realistic, I don’t think anything is outside the realm of possibility either.

Now we’d like to hear your thoughts on the Devils managing their cap if this is their plan; do you think they can manage to make the numbers work like I did? Was I unrealistic despite thinking that I’m not? Would you prefer the Devils to focus more on Bratt than adding a high profile player via trade? Do you think smaller moves or mid-level moves might be more of the way to go than one big splash? Leave any and all comments below and thanks as always for reading!