Expunging Devils Underperformers Easier Than Reconfiguring Bottom Six
It’s not exactly the beginning of a purge, but it’s always a good sign when Devils General Manager Tom Fitzgerald follows up on his pledges for accountability with an expunging.
New Jersey dealt middle six forward Erik Haula to Nashville for a fourth-round pick in the upcoming 2025 NHL Draft plus defenseman Jeremy Hanzel, a nonentity who was quickly demoted last season from AHL Milwaukee to the lower level ECHL.
Haula, 34, was one of several underachieving performers for the Devils last season, producing at a measly .30 points per game clip, his lowest output since his second NHL season in 2014-15. His tenure was marked by high diligence, especially on faceoffs (52.6%) and on the penalty kill (only four goals against in his 103:45 on the ice, the second-best ratio of any Devil with at least 40 PK minutes behind Jack Hughes, per NaturalStatTrick.com) last season. But he was also the poster child for ham-handedness, blowing high danger scoring chances galore, agonizingly unable to lift pucks, if he hit the net at all. He disappeared in the first-round playoff loss to Carolina, registering just one assist in five games.
The Devils collapsed under the weight of malaise and injuries during the second half of last season, barely holding onto third place in a surprisingly inept Metropolitan Division. For a team that started off the year with the highest of aspirations, the downfall assured that there’d be consequences.
At a $3.15 million AAV for the final year of his contract, Haula’s price tag wasn’t so exorbitant as to minimize his trade value (if Fitzgerald is looking to unload wing Ondrej Palat and his $6 million AAV for the next two years, he’ll be coming from a significantly weaker position). A 4 seems about right, even if it looks bad that Fitzgerald dealt younger center Pavel Zacha to Boston in a 1-for-1 for Haula three years ago. Zacha has registered 163 points (56 goals and 107 assists) since the trade.
Fitzgerald’s main priority this offseason is to reconfigure his bottom six. With Haula gone and The Hockey News’ Kristy Flannery reporting that Justin Dowling is likely headed elsewhere in free agency, according to Dowling’s agent, the Devils’ center depth chart currently lists Hughes, Nico Hischier…and no one else, unless the team is finally committed to letting Dawson Mercer ride or die there, a risky proposition for a team that wants a more defensive-minded option in that role. Cody Glass, a pending restricted free agent acquired by New Jersey at the trade deadline, finished off a 2-year, $5 million deal; will Fitzgerald give him a raise to something close to what Haula was slated to earn? That seems like largesse for fourth-line material. Curtis Lazar, who also had a down, albeit injury-plagued, year, with 5 points in 48 games, will enter UFA after being benched in favor of the useless Dowling in the playoffs. That’s not a good sign that the Devils will want him back.
Fitzgerald has always been pretty good with the excising part of roster building to create both salary cap space and tradeable assets. New Jersey is currently slated to have approximately $14.4 million in room, per puckpedia.com, with defenseman Luke Hughes’ restricted free agency being the only major internal hurdle to leap this summer. Though the Devils surrendered their 2025 first-round pick to Calgary in last summer’s acquisition of goalie Jacob Markstrom, they do own five picks in in the next three rounds, including two in Round 2.
However, fitting the right pieces around his high-skilled core has always been troublesome for Fitzgerald. After his club won a playoff round for the first time since 2012 by defeating the rival Rangers two years ago with a speed-based lineup, he overreacted to the second-round loss to Carolina by pivoting to a more grit-and-grind bottom six group. After that five-game defeat, the Devils missed the playoffs altogether and dropped another series to the Hurricanes, also in five games.
It was a long way to get nowhere. At least Fitzgerald recognizes that he hasn’t gotten the balance right—his end-of-season comments indicated that changes were forthcoming.
Unfortunately, solving the problem isn’t going to be as easy as diagnosing it. Answers are rarely in the unrestricted free agent market, where overpays for high-risk players are the norm. I just don’t see how the Devils can fit the elite guys like Toronto’s Mitch Marner or Florida’s Sam Bennett into their cap budget. Even a mid-tier forward like Edmonton’s Connor Brown could cost more than Haula. As for centers, Yanni Gourde (Tampa Bay) and Brock Nelson (Colorado) were never allowed to hit the market. The rest tend to be aging warriors like John Tavares, Claude Giroux, Matt Duchene, and Mikael Granlund, all of whom will likely be unaffordable anyway. Maybe the Devils can poach Jack Roslovic from the hated Canes.
Teams around the league are going to want to mirror Florida, winners of the last three Eastern Conference Finals and the last two Stanley Cups. Panthers management tinkered around until they got the necessary formula.
As I’ve noted previously, Florida’s best forwards—Alexsander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, and Bennett--all play exceptional, physical, two-way hockey. That group, plus a solid defense corps and a Hall-of-Fame bound goalie in Sergie Bobrovsky, set the tone for the depth pieces.
That’s not who these Devils are. While Hischier and Timo Meier can play with an edge, the Hughes brothers and Bratt are just not built that way. That means Fitzgerald has to think differently when constructing his roster around them.
Unless, heaven forbid, he wants to conduct a real purge.
Would be interesting to see Fitz or any other team zig when everyone is zagging. Load up on speed and skill and lean into our strengths. No one will do it but it would be cool.