The New Jersey Devils have loaded up in a season where everything has come together very nicely for them. They have a ton of great young talent leading the way and a strong group throughout. With their trade deadline additions to top it off, they are fully equipped to compete in a tough Eastern Conference. But once the season is over, money and lack of roster spots will force the team to make some changes. Here’s a look at four Devils who won’t be back next season.
Damon Severson
Though it has been a luxury to have three great right-shot defencemen manning each of the defence pairings, it isn’t sustainable and will come to an end in the offseason. Out of Dougie Hamilton, John Marino, and Damon Severson, the latter is the odd man out. Severson is the only unrestricted free agent after the season and has been the player lowest down in the lineup.
He proved last season that he is fully capable of being a top-four defenceman and ran with the great opportunity he was given when Hamilton was injured and having a down season. Severson tied his career high in goals (11) and set a career high in points (46) at age 27 with regular playing time not only in the top-four, but on the top pairing. As he’s been bumped to the third pair this season, he’s still effective for the role he’s played in, but $4.117 million is too high of a price to be paying someone in that role. It’s likely he gets a pay raise next season as well and the Devils won’t be able to afford that. Instead, they have some young defencemen set to come into the lineup and fill the void for much cheaper.
Mackenzie Blackwood
The Devils appear to have found their ideal goalie tandem for a low cost as Vitek Vanecek has assumed the starting job in New Jersey while Akira Schmid stepped up and provided great goaltending in the absence of Mackenzie Blackwood. So that’s who we’re going to discuss here. Schmid is more than ready to play in the NHL while he and Vanecek are both signed through next season. Blackwood is a restricted free agent at the end of the year and his play hasn’t warranted an extension.
The Devils will have to qualify Blackwood in the offseason or negotiate a new contract if they want to keep him around. But that just doesn’t make any sense as then they would have to keep Schmid in the minors. Blackwood has dealt with injuries and hasn’t performed well. As a contender, that’s not a risk the Devils should or will take as they already have their tandem in mind for next season.
Tomas Tatar
Tomas Tatar is going to be a cap casualty for the Devils in the offseason as they have to allot a fair bit of money to Timo Meier and Jesper Bratt if they intend to sign them before next season. Although I don’t think Tatar is going to get $4.5 million AAV on his next contract, he will still eat up quite a bit of cap space that the team won’t have.
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With the acquisition of Meier, Tatar has been bumped down to the third line. On top of that, the Devils have more than enough talent either on their team right now or waiting for their opportunity. Losing Tatar won’t be a massive blow and it will be a necessary one despite his 17 goals and 41 points on the season.
Miles Wood
Even more than moving Tatar, the Devils will benefit greatly by getting Miles Wood’s cap off the books. With such a deep forward group, Wood has been limited to the fourth line while he makes $3.2 million. In the final year of his contract, there’s no reason for the Devils to bring him back. He will be asking for too much for the Devils to logically pay him to continue to play on the fourth line while Wood will likely want an opportunity elsewhere where he can get a shot higher up in the lineup.
Wood has 11 goals and 24 points this season while playing just over 12 minutes a game. He is coming off a year where he missed a ton of time due to injuries. This lost him his role higher up on the Devils. He is still an effective player combining scoring with physicality. He will be able to find a third line role on another team in the offseason.
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