The New Jersey Devils have acquired winger Zack MacEwen from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Kurtis MacDermid, per a team announcement.
This trade is a swap of two highly physical, down-the-lineup players. MacEwen, 29, is a 6’4 227-pound winger set to play out the final season of a three-year, $775K AAV one-way contract. He was signed by the Senators before the 2023-24 season and has played in 51 games in Ottawa across the last two seasons. During his stint in Ottawa, MacEwen managed four goals and six points to go alongside 78 penalty minutes and 104 hits.
MacEwen was in a battle to earn an NHL roster spot in Ottawa to start the 2025-26 season, but was not considered to be a favorite to win a fourth-line role. Now, rather than potentially hit the waiver wire and be sent to the AHL’s Belleville Senators, MacEwen has received a new opportunity with the New Jersey Devils.
At face value, it appears the Devils’ primary motivation behind this trade was financial. While both players are highly physical talents, MacDermid is generally considered to be a marginally more imposing player than MacEwen. But MacEwen is making $775k this season, while MacDermid is set to make $1.15MM against the cap and carries an additional year of term. So in swapping the two players, the Devils have managed to save some cap space while replacing MacDermid with a player who is likely to fill a similar (if not identical) on-ice role.
Having just committed $9MM in cap space to Luke Hughes, this move allows the Devils to gain a marginal amount of additional financial flexibility moving forward.
From the Senators’ perspective there are valid reasons as to why they’d agree to pay the higher price for MacDermid compared to MacEwen. Beyond being just a little bit bigger than MacEwen, MacDermid has been a full-time NHL player since the 2019-20 season – he hasn’t played in the AHL over that entire span. (Meanwhile MacEwen played 30 games in the AHL last season.)
As a result, while the Senators have taken on a greater financial commitment, MacDermid very well could prove to be an upgrade over MacEwen. The Senators recent preseason game against their division rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, was a rambunctious, highly physical affair – and it led to some in Ottawa questioning the team’s level of toughness and ability to endure some of the game’s more physical players. (such as Canadiens defenseman Arber Xhekaj) With this trade, it appears the Senators have made an attempt to reinforce their team’s toughness in advance of what is likely to be a set of bitterly-fought divisional matchups over the course of 2025-26.
MacDermid has one mission, Take care of Xhekaj.
But you weaken the devils by replacing an A+ heavyweight with a C Heavyweight at best . Who couldn’t stop the X brothers in Montreal .
As kids we would taunt a weaker adversary with “You couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag.” That certainly applies to MacEwen, like the other night against Xhekaj.
MacDermid is definitely the much better tough guy of the two. Good move by Ottawa. They needed an answer to Xhekaj after what happened in Quebec City. MacEwen is definitely the more useful player of the two but I’ll sacrifice a little bit more skill for a lot more toughness.
The words who and cares come to mind
always nice when practice pylons get traded for one another