Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023 offseason part II

[MadDevil]

 

[britdevil]

as soon as i loaded twitter a second ago

Bahl Re-Signs with Devils, Inks Two-Year Contract | RELEASE | New Jersey Devils

Bahl, 23, played in a career-high 42 games in 2022-23

www.nhl.com

HE BACK! 2 years, 1.05M AAV

Cheap! Now go earn a pay day big bahls

 

[DevilsHughes86]

That's a solid deal for us, well done!!

 

[Jannik Hansen]

F**k it, we Bahl.

 

[Cheddabombs]

Big Bahl!

 

[NJDevs26]

I don't want Dumba at all for the sheer fact that Lindy won't be able to help himself when Luke has his f*** ups as a young dman. We bitched all of last year with how guys like Wood and Smith had insane leeway with him with their mess ups while the youth got staple gunned to the bench when they did something wrong. If the Devils had a different roster construction, I'd be ok with Dumba but absolutely not with this current one.

I have no fear of that happening with Luke for any long stretch, both because he shoehorned his way into the circle of trust during the Canes series, and because he’s a Hughes.

 

[Zippy316]

Palat deserves the mulligan for sure. He had played an insane amount of hockey for the previous several years.

A long offseason with plenty of time to rehab the mid-season surgery will do him wonders.

I’m willing to bet that there will be plenty of steamy crow dinners served around here.

I don’t think Palat is going to affect the Devils all that much, even if it may be an objectively bad contract.

Hughes, Hischier, Bratt, Siegenthaler, and Marino are all signed to such great deals for their production that it more than balances it out.

Most importantly, Palat is a UFA the same year Hischier is, so there’s no impact to resigning him.

 

[Saugus]

as soon as i loaded twitter a second ago

Bahl Re-Signs with Devils, Inks Two-Year Contract | RELEASE | New Jersey Devils

Bahl, 23, played in a career-high 42 games in 2022-23

www.nhl.com

HE BACK! 2 years, 1.05M AAV

Good deal for us. $1 M for a solid bottom pairing guy who will likely grow into a bigger role, is pretty close to ideal.

 

[Ech0]

 

[MasterofGrond]

Two years where half the (ideal version of the) defense is very, very cheap.

 

[HBK27]

Damn that's a good deal for Bahl.

 

[None Shall Pass]

Love that deal.

 

[njdevil26]

 

[MartyOwns]

he doesnt know anything.

stop hating. he said the devils would wait to see how hall’s knee was before deciding whether or not to sign him long term. only someone super connected would know that.

as soon as i loaded twitter a second ago

Bahl Re-Signs with Devils, Inks Two-Year Contract | RELEASE | New Jersey Devils

Bahl, 23, played in a career-high 42 games in 2022-23

www.nhl.com

HE BACK! 2 years, 1.05M AAV

what’s twitter?

good deal for bahl, who isn’t even the best part of the hall trade. i think we’re locked in now

 

[Guadana]

Great deal. It doesn't hurt if he will not develop, easily tradable, if he will become better, its a great deal. And devils can decide what they are thinking about him and Vilen for example, and if both are very good, we can make a good hockey trade without losing a position.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Have we ever had a team seemingly ready to roll before August? This has to be a record for offseason efficiency.

 

[NjDevsRR]

 

[MadDevil]

Well this obviously needs to be reposted again...

 

[Richer's Ghost]

 

[Guttersniped]

Devils come in 5th in The Athletics contract efficiency ranking (which excludes goalies & doesn't seem to apply ELC's) behind Florida, Carolina, Colorado & Boston.

NHL contract efficiency, 2023 edition: Which teams spend their money most wisely?

Here’s how each NHL team stacks up with regard to the efficiency of all the skater contracts they currently have signed.

theathletic.com

There’s just one thing holding the Devils back from moving up further into the top five and that’s Ondrej Palat’s deal, which has four years remaining at $6 million per. It seemed like a fine idea at the time, but it’s looking much harder to justify these days as the 32-year-old continues to decline.

That’s no matter because every other deal here ranges from perfectly adequate to devilishly good. The team’s top six is especially worthy of envy, not just for the price attached to each entity but also the term. The Devils are set to build a superteam for years to come with seven years of Jack Hughes, four years of Nico Hischier and eight years each of Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier. That’s an elite core four where the combined expected value over the life of their contracts is $44.7 million. The Devils are actually paying just $32 million — enough savings to fit another superstar if they wanted to. Or a lot of depth.

It helps that they were able to lock up Hughes and Hischer before either became the elite centers they are today. The Devils have two of the best contracts in hockey as a result of fortunate timing.

~~~~~~~~

Let's also check-in on some recently departed UFA's...

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Our Proud History in Contract Efficiency:

NHL contract efficiency rankings: Grading every team in the league

The best and worst contracts are the most interesting but those are teasers for a this project where the league is graded on a whole.

theathletic.com

Spoiler: August 3, 2022 #11

As the Devils continue to grow, there’s a strong chance they can move into the top 10. A Jesper Bratt extension will surely put them in the conversation already.

Really, it’s about Jack Hughes continuing on the trajectory he showed last season. The model still underrates him due to his weaker priors, but even with that being considered, he’s already worth his mega-deal. That wasn’t the case when he signed it and it’s only going to look better by this time next year. Further ascent from Nico Hischier should also help.

The Devils don’t have a lot of problem deals, but their two big free agents over the last two summers come in at the bottom. Ondrej Palat feels like an immediate overpayment due to his age, but in the short term, it might be what this team needs.

Dougie Hamilton is a different story. There were plenty of concerns about how his game would translate on a weaker team and those questions weren’t answered positively in his first season. I believe he can bounce back when healthy, but a trying first season with New Jersey has moved him from a positive value player into an overpaid one. We’ll see who he is in Year 2.

By the numbers: Grading every NHL team’s contract efficiency, 2021 edition

We’ve gone over the league’s best and worst contracts now it's time to grade each team’s total contract efficiency.

theathletic.com

(AKA back when Dom whined about Nico’s deal.)

Spoiler: August 12, 2021 #11

11. New Jersey Devils​

Last season: 17th

It is very hard for a team to have their two best contracts come via free agency, especially in today’s market, but New Jersey somehow found a way. That the Devils rank 11th is a small miracle as a result, but there’s not a lot on the books period and they made two smart bets with some analytics favorites.

Tomas Tatar has been a top-line caliber scorer for each of the last three seasons and the Devils got him for a decent price tag without having to sacrifice on term. That’s a good day’s work, but the real prize is Dougie Hamilton whose deal looks better and better every single day. Hamilton is signed for the next seven years at $9 million and that looks like a bargain when seeing that all three of Seth Jones, Zach Werenski and Darnell Nurse signed for a bit more around the same time frame. None of those players are on Hamilton’s level and he’s the cheapest of the four. It may not age well, but for now he should put up elite results which should make him well worth the price tag. The Yegor Sharangovich deal looks pretty great as well.

On the books are two main issues. The first is P.K. Subban who is overpaid by nearly $8 million. He didn’t pan out here, but luckily there’s only one year left. The second is a bit more concerning as its 2017 first pick Nico Hischier. He’s young enough that he can still grow into his contract and he’s already not far off. But as it stands now it does look like a bit of an overpay.

Every NHL team's contracts graded by efficiency

It's time to hand out grades for each NHL team’s total contract efficiency.

theathletic.com

Spoiler: Nov 6, 2020 #17

17. New Jersey Devils​

Last year: 21st

The P.K. Subban deal has aged horribly and a change of scenery only furthered his downfall. That was unexpected and leaves the Devils with one of the league’s worst deals. It’s a similar plight with Travis Zajac, but both deals expire within the next two seasons and the Devils are flush with cap space anyway.

There isn’t a lot on the books here, but the team’s two most important forwards both have strong deals, with Nico Hischier’s having big potential to be a steal. The best deal here happens to be Andreas Johnsson’s, acquired as a cap dump. He can be an underrated scorer and has the potential to fit in well on the top six next to either of the team’s first overall pick centres. One of his best comparables? How about Kyle Palmieri as a Duck at the age of 23, who went on to score 30 goals and 57 points in the following season, his first as a Devil. Maybe lightning strikes twice in New Jersey.

By the numbers: Grading every team’s contract efficiency

A ranking of every NHL contract in an attempt to figure out which teams are the most efficient with the money they spend.

theathletic.com

And the article that started it all.

Spoiler: July 19, 2019 #21

Dom was still figuring out the format, he didn’t actually number the list. We also have almost no long term deals (one really).
#21 Devils

The Devils have a lot of cap space to play with and may be able to weaponize it, but for now, the deals they do have are mostly mediocre. Taylor Hall is an incredible value at $6 million, but only has a single season left. Kyle Palmieri is up there too but only has two.

The rest of the deals on the books are really just average or worse, although it is worth mentioning the team doesn’t have a huge albatross on the books either – not with Travis Zajac up in two seasons. Factor in that the team’s top two centres, both of whom were first-overall picks, are on ELCs and the team’s cap sheet is in a good spot, albeit unremarkable right now. The Hall factor is huge.

I’m also posting Arizona here, people can ignore this, but I’ve just enjoyed how Dom had always shat on their long term RFA deals and then is surprised when they “grow into them” a year or two later.

Spoiler: Arizona through the years

2019

I’m not entirely sure what the Coyotes are up to when it comes to giving out long-term deals. It seems as if they’re locking into what they project from the player’s future value and paying a premium on top of that. It’s a commendable move given most RFAs are underpaid for their future services, but I’m not sure I get it for the players they did it for. It’ll likely work for Jakob Chychrun, but I don’t see it for Nick Schmaltz and Christian Dvorak. Both are fine, but they’ll need to massively step up in order to be worth their cap hits, and they haven’t shown enough to suggest they can – though pairing Schmaltz with Kessel should help. It’s a better bet on players in their prime than with UFAs, but still a bad one with these two.

They also have Oliver Ekman-Larsson on the books for the full eight years, and it’s hard to see him being worth his deal after the past few seasons he’s had. He’s being paid like an elite No. 1, and based on his ability to drive play at both ends of the ice the last few seasons, I’m not sure he’s all that close to that level.

Maybe that’s an issue with the supporting cast around him, but what’s strange is the team is paying a lot of money for a roster that looks less than average. The Coyotes are somehow capped out and it’s because they’re paying sky-high prices for a win, the fifth-highest rate in the league. In fact, the Coyotes have the second-highest defence payroll but are nowhere close to earning on-ice value commensurate of that.

2020

26. Arizona Coyotes​

Last year: 27th

The best news here is that Christian Dvorak has grown into his deal, something that seemed unlikely a year ago. He had a nice breakout season and now grades out as one of the team’s better deals behind only Jakob Chychrun’s bargain $4.6 million annual average and Conor Garland’s one-year pact.

It’s a shame that the same can’t be said about Nick Schmaltz, who has one of the team’s worst contracts, but it does offer hope for the younger Clayton Keller. I haven’t seen enough from him to give him a raise at that price, but the talent is there for it to be possible. He’s a second-liner being paid like a first-liner and though reaching that pinnacle isn’t outside the realm of possibility for the 22-year-old, it’s just unlikely for now based on what he’s shown to date. He really struggles to drive play.

It’s a bad deal, but one Arizona can live with because of the potential. The Oliver Ekman-Larsson one is a different story, rating as one of the league’s worst. That’s the common ground with a lot of the teams at the bottom of the list is the possession of an absolute albatross deal. Ekman-Larsson’s qualifies as he’s being paid to be a legit No. 1 while not having looked the part for any of the last three seasons. It’s very unlikely he reaches that height again, hence the poor positive value probability. He’s the team’s biggest detriment and it’s amazing the Coyotes were almost able to trade it.

2021​

24. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 26th

This looks a lot better than it did last year and that’s thanks to the team shipping out Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s toxic deal and Jakob Chychrun blossoming into a young stud defender. Four more years at $4.6 million is an incredible bargain for one of the league’s best young defensemen, a player who solidified himself as a legitimate number one defender last season. If the team could get Clayton Keller to take a similar leap they’d be in great shape as he still hasn’t grown into his contract just yet. It’s currently the team’s worst one. The same can probably be said for Nick Schmaltz too.

The rest doesn’t matter at all. It’s filler with plenty of cap casualties from other teams littering the cap sheet to make the situation worse than it actually is. It won’t matter because this team will be one of the league’s very worst next year. After that, nearly $30 million comes off the books. With that much cap space, Arizona could be dangerous in a few years – it just needs to do this rebuild right.

2022

27. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 24th

When Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller signed, the deals seemed far too rich for what either brought to the table. Look at them now, earning that B-minus grade. Schmaltz is a little underpaid now while Keller is right on the money with six years left to grow into a star. That either was able to perform as well as they did last year with this franchise is a small miracle. Jakob Chychrun is also here providing positive value — and that’s even after a very trying season last year. His priors still make his deal a solid one. He should be closer to $6 million for what he can bring to the table.

The rest? Honestly, does it matter? This is a team of outcasts and misfits that know the only direction they’re going next year is down. The Arizona Coyotes are a money laundering scheme for other teams where bad contracts go. Andrew Ladd is still here. That’s fun. Sometimes it works out though with Nick Ritchie and Shayne Gostisbehere showing they still have game in the desert, but for the most part it’s an irrelevant cap sheet.

One funny thing here though is Dysin Mayo. Great name, not so great value. Mayo is rated as the worst player by GSVA and by this logic comes in as overpaid by nearly $15 million… on a $3 million deal. Ouch. Anytime I see a player so far in the negative like that, I think of Frank Ocean singing “‘They payin’ me, momma, I should be payin’ them,’ I should be payin’ y’all, honest to God,” on Futura Free.

2023

9. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 27th

Up until this point there probably weren’t too many surprises in the top eight, but I’m guessing the Arizona Coyotes landing at ninth certainly qualifies. The former league money-laundering outfit ranked 27th last season but has really seen its cap sheet clean up over the last little bit. Bad money is few and far between as the Coyotes are ready to start rising up the ranks.

The Coyotes have a few solid deals on the back end between Juuso Valimaki, Sean Durzi and J.J. Moser, but Arizona’s big wins mostly come from the team’s four most dynamic forwards. That starts with Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, two players who signed contracts well above their talent level a few seasons ago with the expectation that they would grow into them. It was a savvy risk that’s now paying off big time as the duo are both modeled $2 million higher than their current deals. They’ve exploded over the last two seasons with Keller especially starting to look like the franchise player he always had the potential of becoming.

Along for the ride between those two was Barrett Hayton, who last year finally started showing off some of the promise that comes with being a top-five pick. Better late than never and it comes at a perfect time with only one year left on his deal.

The team’s best deal, though, might just be its most recent: a $3.4 million pact that spans three years for Matias Maccelli, who was super impressive during his rookie season. The model is extremely keen on him after he scored at a 63-point pace last season while posting some excellent two-way impacts at five-on-five. If he can repeat that or build on it, a $3.4 million cap hit is a pittance.

 

[longislanddevil]

Say what you want about Shero but the Hall trade got us Mercer, Siegs and Bahl. Of course the Devils needed to hit on Mercer but still…..can’t get much better than that, folks. And to think….just how different this franchise would look right now if Shero did sign Hall long term. Dodging bullets….

 

[FooteBahl]

Have we ever had a team seemingly ready to roll before August? This has to be a record for offseason efficiency.

If FitzMagic is done, capfriendly is showing us with a tad under 9 million in space at the deadline. If goaltending is an issue, we have plenty of assets and space to work with. I love the plan.

 

[Bleedred]

Say what you want about Shero but the Hall trade got us Mercer, Siegs and Bahl. Of course the Devils needed to hit on Mercer but still…..can’t get much better than that, folks. And to think….just how different this franchise would look right now if Shero did sign Hall long term. Dodging bullets….

I always talk about this.

If we had signed Hall to the deal we thought we were going to ($10-$11 million for 8 years) we’d still have 5 years of him left at $10-$11 million per.

And the contract he’s currently on is $6 million (I think?) for only 2 more years. And Boston couldn’t wait to unload him fast enough this season.

That said, I don’t think his current deal is bad at all, it’s just that we wouldn’t have been signing him for his current deal. Him at 5 years and approximately $50 million remaining would be a disaster.

 

[glenwo2]

as soon as i loaded twitter a second ago

Bahl Re-Signs with Devils, Inks Two-Year Contract | RELEASE | New Jersey Devils

Bahl, 23, played in a career-high 42 games in 2022-23

www.nhl.com

HE BACK! 2 years, 1.05M AAV

I like this picture better to signal "he's back" :

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Devils seem done to me except possibly a goalie since Schmid is waiver exempt. They have 1.9m in cap space today, will be 8.9m at the deadline. If Schmid/Vanecek falter maybe you can swing a deal for Hellebuyck at the deadine when Winnipeg is forced to move him or lose him. At least a deal could be made for a competent backup/1B if necessary.

Thank You - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Thank you for the amazing 9 years

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