You really needed a scorecard to figure out who was wearing the red jerseys on Monday night at the Prudential Center.
The Devils completed their fire sale earlier in the day by shipping goalie Keith Kinkaid off to Columbus and, right before the trade deadline clock struck 3pm, top-six wing Marcus Johansson to Boston.
All told, four Devils (20 percent) from last season’s roster that qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs have been excised since Devils general manager Ray Shero started dealing. New Jersey traded fourth-line center Brian Boyle to Nashville on February 6 and defenseman Ben Lovejoy to Dallas on Sunday.
Between the trades and their bevy of injuries (Taylor Hall, Pavel Zacha, Sami Vatanen, Will Butcher and Stefan Noesen were among the Devils on the shelf for Monday’s contest versus Montreal while Miles Wood and John Quenneville exited mid-game), New Jersey was left with a minor-league lineup to face the playoff-hunting Habs.
Devils Trade Kinkaid To Blue Jackets, Johansson To Bruins
That the Devils won, 2-1, was a testament to the standout goaltending performance by Cory Schneider, his fourth win in his last five games after breaking a 21-game winless streak on February 15 in relief of a struggling Kinkaid. The Devils were outshot, 35-22, and went 0-for-5 on the power play on Monday.
That is not a sustainable winning formula.
Get used to it, though, as the Devils are all in on the tank, hoping for a repeat of the lottery luck that landed them center Nico Hischier in 2017. Though the victory vaulted New Jersey over Anaheim into 27th place among the NHL’s 31 teams, I am confident that the trade deadline departures will produce a more desirable effect in the standings.
It had to be done. What was Devils general manager Ray Shero going to do with all of his pending unrestricted free agent veterans anyway? For the third time in his four seasons at the helm, Shero’s mission at the deadline was to, in the immortal words of Randolph Duke from “Trading Places”, “Sell! Sell! Sell!”, while maximizing the returns.
Shero got surprisingly high value for marginal talent like Boyle (a second-rounder) and Lovejoy (24-year old defenseman Connor Carrick and a third-rounder). Kinkaid for a five in 2022 seems fair, given his woeful stats (2-8 with a 4.34/.870 GAA/save percentage split in his last 11 starts) of late.
However, Johansson didn’t command as much as I had hoped, given his hot stick that produced four goals and three assists in his last six games as a Devil before sitting out the last two games as a precaution. When I saw that Detroit failed to receive a one for the higher-scoring Gustav Nyquist and that more accomplished wingers such as Mark Stone and Wayne Simmonds were still on the market, I adjusted my expectations.
Devils Trade Lovejoy To Stars For Defenseman, Draft Pick
Shero previously acquired Johansson in the summer of 2017 from Washington in a trade that cost a second-and-a-third-rounder. The Devils did recoup the two from Boston, though it figures to be much lower than the original 46th overall selection given the Bruins’ record, and added a four instead of a three.
Though the Devils will have 10 selections in the 2019 Draft, only one will be in the first round, where the odds of copping top-end talent are the greatest. As I noted several times in prior posts, Shero’s strategy of quantity over quality has yet to pay significant dividends. Hischier looks like a fixture, but of Shero’s other 30 draft choices in four years, the only one who is among the Devils’ top-12 scorers this season is Jesper Bratt, a rare find as a sixth-rounder in 2016.
You’ll get a good look at several others in the Devils’ final 19 games. As Shero emphasized in his press conference before Monday’s game, he wasn’t re-loading with players claimed on waivers. 2016 draft picks Michael McLeod and Nathan Bastian, whose first career goal put New Jersey up, 1-0, on Monday, were called up from Binghamton to gain NHL experience and help the Devils’ brass evaluate their futures. As a reminder, though, neither prospect has been given top ratings by experts.
Fortunately, Shero has had better success as a trader than as a drafter, which has helped keep his overall grade above water despite this season’s 180. He will always be known as the victor for the one deal made famous by a tweet from TSN’s Bob McKenzie on June 29, 2016:
“Trade is one for one: Adam Larsson for Taylor Hall.”
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