Speculation: 2017 Offseason/Expansion Draft Part II

[HenriquesJawLine]

Interesting stuff from TSN, a lot of it we knew already but a new name popping up that might not be able to be protected is Jason Zucker. If they can't protect him I can't see him being available for Vegas, a lot of teams would probably love to trade for him. He's basically a more polished version of Miles Wood (Wood is way ahead in development than Zucker was at the same age btw). Only problem is we have good LW depth so Silfverberg might make more sense. Insightful video though, there is going to be a lot of time for teams to end up leaving scraps for Vegas.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

if Zucker is available, LV will 100000% take him. Hes from there.

 

[HenriquesJawLine]

if Zucker is available, LV will 100000% take him. Hes from there.

Definitely. Unless Minnesota is way too generous I don't see how he would reach the expansion draft with the season he's having. Either they somehow make something work out or they trade him, he's become too much of an asset to just leave him exposed.

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

Not gonna happen, but Zucker is represents the exact skill set Shero wants to build this team around. If MIN decides to trade him, I'm sure we'd be in on it.

 

[Triumph]

They're assuming here that Minnesota would go 4-4, which I'm not sure they want to.

The tricky part here is knowing how much teams will give up to not let Vegas draft one of their guys. The Devils definitely have a spot open such that they can afford to go 7-3 or 4-4 depending on what's traded to them, it's just totally not apparent right now how willing teams are going to be to make trades of would-be exposed players, rather than trying to bribe Vegas into not selecting them.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

as of right now, I'd expect Vegas to take someone like John Moore.

I think what ends up happening is we give Josefson or Bennett a 1 year extension before the expansion draft and then expose DSP, one of those 2, and Moore that hit the games played requirements.

 

[MichaelJ]

Interesting stuff from TSN, a lot of it we knew already but a new name popping up that might not be able to be protected is Jason Zucker. If they can't protect him I can't see him being available for Vegas, a lot of teams would probably love to trade for him. He's basically a more polished version of Miles Wood (Wood is way ahead in development than Zucker was at the same age btw). Only problem is we have good LW depth so Silfverberg might make more sense. Insightful video though, there is going to be a lot of time for teams to end up leaving scraps for Vegas.

The names that really stuck out to me were Silfverberg, Brodin, Namestnikov, and even Reinhart. I hope this is Shero's focus up to the draft.

 

[Jets012]

If Wood becomes even half as good as Zucker I'll be ecstatic.

Zucker is a stud. 17 goals/24 assists just on the 5 on 5 this year. He'd instantly become the 2nd best forward on this team behind Hall. If there's even the slightest of chances he's available, Shero better try to make a move.

 

[Jets012]

Out of guys with 300 minutes on the 5 on 5, Zucker is #2 in Points/60. He's only behind Sheary (who has the luxury of playing with #3 and #4 on the list in Malkin/Crosby).

I just couldn't forsee a scenario in which Zucker was available.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Zucker would be huge for this team, hopefully Minnesota will be interested in picks after mortgaging so many for Hanzal and other rentals over the years.

If we could somehow keep our 1st this year and give up a package of futures for Zucker I'll drive to The Rock and personally hand Shero a bottle of $1500 scotch.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Man, I'm sorry I missed the "expose Zajac" conversation from yesterday.

If we can find a way to snag Zucker, that'd be fantastic. Either way, I think Minnesota is atop the viable trade partner list in the offseason. Find a way to get one young player from them this summer!

 

[ghdi]

If we could somehow keep our 1st this year and give up a package of futures for Zucker

They may have to considering their cap situation. They've only got about $5M coming off after the season + they have to re-up Granlund. I'd gladly take Zucker and a salaried player back. I could also see them protecting Zucker though.

Looking around the league, there has to be lots of jostling to make the ED work for a lot of teams. Time for Ray to work some magic.

 

[Feed Me A Stray Cat]

When Zucker was 21 he put up 50 points in 55 AHL games, and also had better collegiate success. Not sure how he was less polished than Wood.

As a previous poster said, if Wood becomes 75% of the player Zucker is now it will be very exciting.

 

[EnglishDevil]

Exposing Zajac would be absolutely asinine, he's a quality second line center who i'm certain other teams would covet if he were available for trade. He's fantastic defensively, a great penalty killer, wins more than his fair share of face-offs and is somehow still producing at around a 50 point pace on an offensively inept team.

$5.75 million year is pretty fair value for what he brings, especially considering the cap is well above $70 million now. He's 31 years old and he's only signed for four more years; stranger things have happened but i'm not exactly expecting a precipitous decline in his level of play given that his game seems to rely more on intelligence and positioning than raw physical tools.

I'm personally of the opinion that it may make sense to trade Zajac in about two years time; given the current state of our team I have my doubts we'll be a legitimate contender before he's approaching the end of his contract. If we hold onto him for another two seasons it gives us a chance to let the youngsters get their feet wet (McLeod, Zacha, perhaps whoever we draft this year too) while having Zajac as a model veteran to learn from and shelter them a little.

It's more likely than not that he'll still have considerable value to a contender two years from now (even if we retain a little bit of salary) Zajac is the kind of player who could push a contender over the edge.

It's a shame that he's a little too old to be a part of our future 'core' as he's criminally underrated and i'd love him to see him win a cup with us. I prefer him as a player to Henrique but given the choice i'd rather us trade Zajac purely because of the age difference. In my mind one of the two will likely get phased out by the youngsters, especially with us potentially adding another center in the top 10 of this years draft.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I know we can fit it, but just remember that any guy we trade for we have to also protect and that means most likely exposing someone else.

 

[Smitty426]

I know we can fit it, but just remember that any guy we trade for we have to also protect and that means most likely exposing someone else.

If he is better than any of these guys I have no problem exposing our guy! I cant even come up with another forward to protect!
Brodin over Merrill, Zucker over any of those in brackets

Hall
Palms
Rico
Zajac

(Noesen and JJ BB8 I guess)


Greene
Sevs
Merrill

Cory

 

[Triumph]

Josefson is UFA at the end of the year and under no circumstances should he be protected. But yeah, the Devils are basically fine either way, they can get a defenseman and protect 4/4 and lose Bennett or Noesen or DSP (I'd try to trade Vegas Nashville's 6th to get them to pass over Bennett in this scenario), or they can get a forward and protect 7/3.

 

[R8Devs]

jake is rfa

 

[Triumph]

jake is rfa

It's very unlikely that he is. UFA comes at 27 or 7 accrued seasons. He's not 27, but he definitely has 6 accrued seasons (11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17). The only question is did he get an accrued season in 2012-13 in the lockout year, and it's basically impossible to answer that because the thresholds for that were to my knowledge never released. The threshold in a normal season is 40 games on the roster, which in a 48 game season works out to 23 or 24 games. He played 22 games, so if he missed any time with injury or was a healthy scratch for 1 or 2 games, he probably hit the threshold. It's hard to tell without trying to find when he was recalled/demoted that year, because he definitely was sent to the AHL multiple times that year, but I'd wager on his being UFA.

 

[MadDevil]

CapFriendly and NHLNumbers both have him listed as RFA this summer.

 

[HenriquesJawLine]

It appears that Zucker plays both wings, I like him even more now

 

[AfroThunder396]

I have to think Minnesota will do everything in their power to make Zucker available. The way he's emerged the past year, they'd probably rather dump a guy like Nino or Scandella to accommodate him.

Even then, I'd be happy to add one of those guys. MIN is a prime target for Shero to exploit this summer.

 

[MichaelJ]

I have to think Minnesota will do everything in their power to make Zucker available. The way he's emerged the past year, they'd probably rather dump a guy like Nino or Scandella to accommodate him.

Even then, I'd be happy to add one of those guys. MIN is a prime target for Shero to exploit this summer.

Niederreiter would be a great add and fit the team identity

 

[Triumph]

CapFriendly and NHLNumbers both have him listed as RFA this summer.

I'm not sure they know about the very unusual circumstances that I just outlined above.

 

[Zippy316]

I know we can fit it, but just remember that any guy we trade for we have to also protect and that means most likely exposing someone else.

Doesn't really matter at the forward position when the only guys we really need to protect are Henrique, Hall, Zajac, Cammalleri, and Palmieri.

If we get any semi-decent middle-six forward, they're likely a better bet then protecting Bennett/Josefson/Noesen/etc.