One of the most enjoyable things for me as a hockey fan is having the ability to mess around with CapFriendly's Armchair GM. With the lack of a quality hockey management game out there its my favorite way to see what the future might hold. FHM is still trash, and EHM just needs an update from the people that made it. In the meantime, CapFriendly is my thing.

I started playing around with a trade for this season and resigning some contracts next year, and here is what I came up with:

TRADE:

To New Jersey: LW/RW Timo Meier, LW/C/RW Steve Lorentz

To San Jose: RW Alexander Holtz, LW/C Yegor Sharangovich, Rights to D Seamus Casey, NJ's 1st Rounder in 2023

RFA Contracts:

Nathan Bastian $1.1M/2 years (avoids arbitration)

Michael McLeod $1.5M/2 years (avoids arbitration)

Fabian Zetterlund $1.8M/2 year (avoids arbitration)

The BIG Contracts:

Jesper Bratt - $8M/8 years

Timo Meier - $8.5M/8 years

The Resignings:

Tomas Tatar - $5M/3 years

Ryan Graves - $5M/4 years

The UFA:

Zach Aston-Reese - $1.1M/2 years

The Rookies:

LHD Luke Hughes, RHD Simon Nemec, RW Graeme Clarke, RW Tyce Thompson, G Akira Schmid

Available Cap Space: $66,667

The Theory:

Next season might not be the lights out year that this year was but this season goes a long way towards solidifying the future of the team. SB Nation projects a cap increase to $87M in the 2024-25 season with Dawson Mercer and Graeme Clarke being the only RFA's to worry about, Tyce Thompson hitting arbitration, and Steven Lorentz as a UFA. With Schnedier's buyout coming off of the books the team will have $11.9M in cap space available. Plenty of room to make some more moves if needed.

The Lines:

Ondrej Palat - Nico Hischier - Jesper Bratt

Timo Meier - Jack Hughes - Fabian Zetterlund

Tomas Tatar - Dawson Mercer - Graeme Clarke

Steven Lorentz - Michael McLeod - Nathan Bastian

SUBS: Zach Aston-Reese, Tyce Thompson

Defense:

Jonas Siegenthaler - Dougie Hamilton

Luke Hughes - John Marino

Ryan Graves - Simon Nemec

Brandon Smith

Goalies:

Vitek Vanecek - Akira Schmid

Wrapping It Up:

I think that this is a pretty reasonable take on some roster moves that would make this team better. The addition of a guy like Lorentz gives the team another option with some "size" at wing as the team gets ready to make their playoff run. Obviously, there would have to be some retained salary, perhaps for Meier, or another "paper" move to unload Andres Johnsson. Maybe Johnsson and a third or fourth round pick for the oft traded "Future Considerations."

As far as ranking the Devils' salary contributions when compared to this year's totals as of today, they'd be 2nd for forwards at $51.8M (62%), 11th for defense with $24.8M (29.7%), and 25th for goalies at $4.25M (5.1%).

SO.... Thoughts? Am I out of my mind? Are there overpays? Underpays? What does everyone think?