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Latest On Jesper Bratt

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According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, Brown is “thinking about testing the market” next summer. Accordingly, Friedman notes that this news “punts the ball” into the Senators’ hands in terms of whether they should trade Brown to maximize the long-term value they can gain from him. With comparable players such as Blake Coleman or Artturi Lehkonen returning first-round picks or strong prospects in their own trades, the Senators could prefer a package similar to what the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils received for those players rather than risk letting Brown walk. Brown is on a $3.6MM cap hit, and he could become an especially desirable trade asset if the Senators offered to retain salary on him as well.

  • Jesper Bratt has become a focal point of many discussions over the past week, with conflicting reports on whether he’d be a prime candidate to be traded this summer. The Devils’ breakout winger, who was nearly point-per-game this year, is a pending restricted free agent, and some, including Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli, have speculated that he could have priced himself off of a team that is reportedly looking for more “hard skill” this offseason. Friedman, though, pumps the breaks a bit on that conversation. According to Friedman, Bratt and the Devils’ last contract negotiation was “a tough one,” and that both sides “really grinded” each other in the process. So, Friedman believes that, knowing how hard the last negotiation was between the team and player, “everybody’s kind of preparing for a tough one” this summer, and Bratt’s name surfacing in potential trade rumors is simply a natural part of a cutthroat negotiation process. That explanation would make a lot of sense since it’s hard to see the Devils, who still have a lot of room to work with under the salary cap, send away their team’s leading scorer just as he’s coming into his own as a superstar player.

Latest On Jesper Bratt

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The rebuild of the New Jersey Devils has largely consisted of draft lottery wins, including Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, and the second-overall selection in this year’s NHL Entry Draft, a few under-the-radar trades for players like Ryan Graves and Jonas Siegenthaler, a blockbuster free-agent signing of Dougie Hamilton, and the surprising development of a 2016 sixth-round pick: Jesper Bratt. Over his NHL career, Bratt has proven he belongs in the NHL, initially providing solid secondary scoring for New Jersey before a superb breakout season in 2021-22, where he lead the team in scoring with 73 points in 76 games. Soon to be 24 and now an NHL veteran, Bratt finds himself a restricted free agent this offseason at the conclusion of a two-year, $5.5MM contract he signed with the Devils prior to the 2020-21 season.

Despite the success and becoming a major building-block for the Devils, in his updated trade targets list yesterday, The Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli added Bratt’s name into the mix, citing the lack of discussion between player and team on Bratt’s next contract. Earlier this afternoon, ESPN’s Kevin Weekes added to the story, saying he had also heard that there had been no significant extension talks between the two sides (link). Weekes also said he could confirm that several teams were indeed interested in trading for the Swedish winger. Of course many teams would likely be interested in making a deal for Bratt, considering his age, his control as a RFA, and his ability to create offense and support his line. This interest also makes it hard to understand why New Jersey might be interested in moving the winger themselves upon seeing this development and his chemistry with their other young building blocks, not to mention plenty of salary cap space at just over $25.3MM projected this offseason.

Perhaps putting the rumors to bed, however, is The Star-Ledger’s Ryan Novozinsky. You may recall last weekend, Novozinsky addressed Bratt’s contract, speaking directly to his agent, Joakim Persson, who confirmed the sides have had discussions on a contract, which included meeting in person several weeks ago, as well as a few phone calls since. In light of Weekes’ tweet today, Novozinsky reiterated what Persson told him, that both sides have had discussions on a contract, though no deal is imminent. In addition to Bratt’s camp, the Devils confirmed to Novozinsky that contract talks were ongoing and the process takes time (link).

The comments from Persson and the confirmation from the Devils would seem to prove there has been dialogue, one that would likely continue, but today’s comments from Weekes do certainly raise eyebrows. Not having a deal finalized right now is far from a concern, and could be due to a number of factors, some wholly unrelated to Bratt, but the Devils do have until July 13th to be in full control of the negotiations before their star player can talk to other teams, which could lead to an offer-sheet scenario. Though that scenario has not been speculated or reported on, it could serve as a soft deadline to work out a contract.

Hockey Canada Names Men’s U20, U18 Team Selection Camp Rosters

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As the 2022 event cycle begins to come to a close, aside from the postponed 2022 World Juniors set to take place in August, national team organizations begin to look to the 2023 calendar. Today, Hockey Canada named their rosters for the National Men’s Junior Team summer development camp, as well as the National Men’s Summer Under-18 Team selection camp.

The National Men’s Junior Team roster is comprised of talent from the 2021 NHL Draft, as well as the upcoming 2022 and 2023 NHL Drafts. Among the top NHL-affiliated talent attending the camp is Chicago Blackhawks D Nolan Allan, Columbus Blue Jackets D Corson Ceulemans, Dallas Stars F Wyatt Johnston, Los Angeles Kings D Brandt Clarke, Nashville Predators F Zachary L’Heureux, New Jersey Devils F Chase Stillman, New York Rangers F Brennan Othmann, St. Louis Blues F Zachary Bolduc, and Vegas Golden Knights F Zach Dean. Clarke was notably snubbed from the 2022 World Juniors roster.

In terms of 2022 eligibles to watch at selection camp, the list is as follows: F Luca Del Bel Belluz, F Jagger Firkus, F Nathan Gaucher, F Conor Geekie, F Ryan Greene, F Tucker Robertson, F Matthew Savoie, F Reid Schaefer, D Kevin Korchinski, D Christian Kyrou, D Tristan Luneau, D Denton Mateychuk, D Owen Pickering, G Tyler Brennan, G Chase Coward, and G Thomas Milic. Forwards Nate Danielson and Adam Fantilli also made the camp roster as 2023 eligible. Really, the only 2022 top-ten lock from that list is Savoie, but Geekie, Korchinski, and Mateychuk are also names that could work their way into the first selections.

The U18 roster is made up of 2023 and 2024 eligible players, and it’s highlighted by a trio of 2023 forwards: Zachary Benson, Matthew Wood, and Brayden Yager.

Nikita Popugayev Returns To Hockey

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Snapshots: Point, Mock Draft, Kassian

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As the Stanley Cup Final is set to commence in two days, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Colorado Avalanche will retake the ice today to practice ahead of their last four to seven games of the season. Of note from Tampa’s side of things is that injured star center Brayden Point continued to take part in practice today and took line rushes for the first time, centering a line between Nick Paul and Ross Colton, per The Athletic’s Joe Smith. However, assistant coach Jeff Halpern said after practice that “he didn’t know if you could read too much” into Point’s status, noting that it was a light session.

Tampa will be waiting anxiously to get an answer on when Point can return. Given the uncertain health of Nazem Kadri on the other side for Colorado, Tampa Bay having their full center depth available to them would give them a much greater chance at winning their third straight Stanley Cup.

  • With the 2022 NHL Draft now within a month, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler, one of the top public prospect evaluators, released his 2022 NHL Mock Draft, taking team needs, consensus, and intel into account aside from just his own rankings. Although more and more doubt remains around the status of Kingston Frontenacs center Shane Wright as the Montreal Canadiens’ no. 1 overall pick, Wheeler still has Wright listed in the first spot. Rounding out the top five is winger Juraj Slafkovsky to the New Jersey Devils, center Logan Cooley to the Arizona Coyotes, defenseman Simon Nemec going first off the board among d-men to the Seattle Kraken, and defenseman David Jiricek headed to the Philadelphia Flyers.
  • The first buyout window of the offseason opens July 1, and Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli has Edmonton Oilers winger Zack Kassian at the top of his list of 10 buyout candidates for this summer. Kassian, who carries a cap hit of $3.2MM through 2024, mustered just 19 points in 58 games this season and averaged under nine minutes per game in the playoffs. With the 31-year-old forward only set to continue declining, Edmonton could take the buyout penalty to free up more space to improve their depth scoring. The buyout for Kassian is relatively benign, per CapFriendly, with a cap hit of $666,667 in 2022-23, $1,866,667 in 2023-24, and $966,667 in 2024-25 and 2025-26. It offers $2.5MM in savings upfront in 2022-23, an appealing number for general manager Ken Holland.

Contract Talks Start For Jesper Bratt

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The Devils have started discussions on a new contract for pending RFA Jesper Bratt, the winger told Ryan Novozinsky of the Star-Ledger (Twitter link).  Bratt added that talks haven’t progressed yet to the point of talking salary so it’s clear that a deal certainly isn’t imminent.  The 23-year-old is coming off a career year that saw him lead New Jersey in scoring with 26 goals and 47 assists in 76 games, more than doubling his previous career-high of 35 points set in his rookie year.  Bratt is arbitration-eligible and two years away from UFA eligibility and both sides have expressed a desire to get a long-term contract in place.  But with the year he just had, that type of deal would command a price tag of more than double the $2.75MM AAV he had on his bridge contract.  Arbitration hearings aren’t likely to start until early August so there is still plenty of time to get an agreement in place.

P.K. Subban Wins The King Clancy Trophy

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The NHL award being revealed on Tuesday was the King Clancy Trophy which is given annually “to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community”.  It was announced that Devils defenseman P.K. Subban is this year’s winner.  He created the P.K. Subban Foundation in 2014 while playing with Montreal and pledged $10MM over seven years to Montreal Children’s Hospital.  Subban also founded Blueline Buddies in 2016 when he played for Nashville and earlier this year, he donated $1MM in support of Le Spot, a Montreal mental health clinic while also matching donations to help Ukrainian cancer patients.  It’s the fourth time that Subban has been a finalist for the award with this being his first win.  Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf and Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse were the other finalists.

New Jersey Devils Hire Angus Mugford, Promote Meghan Duggan

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Barely a year after first hiring her, the New Jersey Devils are giving Meghan Duggan a promotion. Duggan will be made director of player development, moving up in the department she joined in 2021. The team has also announced the hiring of Dr. Angus Mugford as senior vice president, player development and performance.

Duggan, 34, is one of the most decorated players in U.S. hockey history, having won eight World Championship medals (seven gold) and three Olympic medals (one gold), along with three NCAA championships and a Patty Kazmaier Award as the nation’s top player. She wore the “C” as captain of Team USA for years, including her final appearance at the 2018 Games.

She joined the Devils last year in a manager role within the player development department and has obviously done well enough to now deserve a promotion. At the time of her hiring, Hayley Wickenhesier was sitting as the highest ranked woman in an NHL front office with her role as senior director of player development with the Toronto Maple Leafs. That has since changed dramatically, with the appointment of Cammi Granato and Emilie Castonguay as assistant general managers with the Vancouver Canucks.

Duggan was just entering the national team program as Granato exited her playing days but Wickenheiser was a regular opponent at international events. They now continue to set the path forward for women in NHL front offices, this new promotion just another step along the way.

Mugford, meanwhile, is coming over from the baseball world, where he spent the last seven years with the Toronto Blue Jays. As the leader of the team’s high performance department, he overhauled the Blue Jays’ player development and integrated a sports science department. As part of a lengthy statement about the hire, Devils’ general manager Tom Fitzgerald explained:

Angus has an outstanding background in culture, care and development and has all the attributes required to build a model that will help our players get the best out of themselves and direct them to their next level.

Emily Kaplan of ESPN broke the news of Duggan’s promotion. 

Latest On Devils Top Draft Pick

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  • We previously covered when Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald publicly communicated a willingness to deal his team’s top draft pick for an impact player, but many have wondered if that willingness still exists since the Devils won the second pick in the draft. According to Friedman, the Devils “will still consider” the possibility of moving the pick. Friedman reports that the Devils are in the process of “firming up a list of players they would consider moving the pick for.” One player who many have speculated will be on that list is Minnesota Wild forward Kevin Fiala. Fiala will be 26 at the start of next season and fits the Devils’ competitive timeline. He also is coming off an extremely productive 85-point season, and the Wild are going to be hard-pressed to find the cap space to keep him. It’s a natural fit for each side, and it seems from Friedman’s reporting that it’s the kind of situation the Devils will ponder as the calendar turns to June.

Offseason Checklist: New Jersey Devils

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The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t playoff-bound plus some that were eliminated early in the playoffs.  It’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at New Jersey.

While the Devils made a big splash last summer when they handed Dougie Hamilton the biggest UFA contract, they weren’t picked by many to contend for a playoff spot this season.  That said, not many expected them to struggle as much as they did either.  They’re a team that’s viewed as being on the rise with a good young nucleus so the focus now needs to be on strengthening their squad to get back into postseason contention which is a big part of their summer checklist.

Defensive Decisions

GM Tom Fitzgerald has a few decisions to make this summer when it comes to his back end.  For starters, Damon Severson and Ryan Graves will be entering the final year of their respective contracts next season and both will be UFA-eligible next summer.  Severson had a career year this season and was their top defender in terms of production and playing time.  That has him in line for a sizable raise on his current $4.167MM AAV.  But with Hamilton (another right-shot rearguard) locked up at $9MM per year through 2027-28, can they afford another high-priced blueliner on that side?  If a deal can’t be reached, then he becomes a trade candidate.

Graves’ situation is a little trickier.  He quietly had a career year offensively and didn’t look out of place in his first season with New Jersey.  But his track record is a lot smaller; he has just three full NHL seasons under his belt and two of those were shortened due to COVID.  He’s trending towards a raise on his $3.33MM AAV but has he shown enough to be part of their long-term plans?  If so, Fitzgerald will likely want to try to work on an extension once he’s eligible to sign one in July.

The other decision they’ll need to make pertains to P.K. Subban.  While it’s likely that he won’t be retained, how are they going to redistribute his $9MM cap hit across the roster?  They have the ability to try to swing big and add another impact blueliner or try to use some of that to cover extensions for one or both of Severson and Graves.  Alternatively, if Fitzgerald opted to reallocate the bulk of that money to his forward group, that could bolster their forward unit.  With the team being near the middle of the pack in that regard this season, a big boost up front could propel them closer to the top ten in that department.

Re-Sign Bratt

If someone was to ask who New Jersey’s top scorer was this season, it’d be understandable the first name that came to mind was either Jack Hughes or Nico Hischier, their core building blocks down the middle.  But that wouldn’t be the right answer.  No, the leading scorer was winger Jesper Bratt, a player who more than doubled his previous career-high in points while putting up 26 goals and 47 assists in 76 games.  He picked a perfect time to do so as he’s set to be a restricted free agent this summer with arbitration eligibility.  As a result, a new deal for the 23-year-old will be high on Fitzgerald’s to-do list.

It won’t be an easy task, however, when it comes to finding the right number for a contract.  Is his 73-point season a sign of things to come or an outlier considering his other four NHL seasons had point totals between 30 and 35?  Bratt’s camp will certainly argue the former while the Devils will want to hedge against the latter.  Fitzgerald has stated his intention to get Bratt signed to a long-term contract and with only two RFA years remaining, it’s going to take a big number to get the winger to lock down the prime years of his career.  He’s coming off a deal that carried a $2.75MM AAV and a long-term deal that buys out some UFA seasons will almost certainly cost double that or more.

Add A Goalie

Two years ago, the Devils thought they had the right veteran partner for Mackenzie Blackwood when they signed Corey Crawford to a two-year deal.  However, he had a last-minute change of heart, retiring before training camp.  New Jersey went down a similar path last summer, inking Jonathan Bernier to a two-year deal.  But a hip injury limited him to just ten games this season and he may not be ready to start 2022-23.  In the meantime, Blackwood’s stock has fallen considerably from a goalie on the rise to one that couldn’t crack the top 50 in the NHL in SV% among qualifying goaltenders this season.

Generally speaking, carrying three goaltenders isn’t a desirable situation.  But for the Devils, it’s basically a necessity to hedge against Bernier’s injury and Blackwood’s struggles.  Nico Daws was okay in his first taste of NHL duty but he needs to be in the minors for another season or two so they’ll need to look outside the organization for that third netminder.

The UFA market would be the easiest way to go with players like Jack Campbell and Ville Husso representing upside buys, albeit risky ones with their limited track records.  Veterans like Marc-Andre Fleury and Braden Holtby are shorter-term options if their intention is to just shore the position up for now and look for the big fix later.  (Darcy Kuemper is also available but it’s hard to see the Devils being the winner for his services.)  With where New Jersey is in terms of still emerging from its rebuild though, will they be appealing to those free agents if they’re looking to win sooner than later?

The trade market is another option although that market won’t materialize for a while.  Alexandar Georgiev should be available but is he much of an upgrade (and would the Rangers move him to their rival)?  Washington may move one of their goalies if they can land a more proven veteran but again, they come with question marks.  Others will come available over the coming months but will they be considerable upgrades?  That’s far from a guarantee.

There aren’t any truly obvious choices here for New Jersey other than the fact they’ll need to add a goalie at some point over the next couple of months.

Add Win-Now Talent

While New Jersey opted to keep Lindy Ruff behind the bench (instead opting to make a couple of changes to their assistants), it’s fair to surmise he’ll be on a short leash to start next season.  At some point, they need to go from rebuilding to pushing for a playoff spot; they’ve only made the playoffs once in the last decade.  That switch should be flipped this summer.

They have a little over $25MM in cap space this summer with Bratt’s deal being the only one that will be a high-priced contract.  While they also need to re-sign Miles Wood and Pavel Zacha, they’ll have well above $10MM to spend on the open market or in trades which puts them in a much better position than most of the league.  While it’s understandable if they want to leave themselves a bit of a cap cushion heading into the season, they should be within a few million of the Upper Limit so there is definitely room to work with.

They have the ability to outbid teams in free agency as they did for Hamilton last summer.  They can take on a bad contract for cheap in a trade that would double as an upgrade on their roster.  The options are plentiful but by the time October rolls around, Fitzgerald needs to find a way to add multiple impact veteran players if the Devils are going to have a realistic shot of trying to get into the Wild Card hunt next season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Salary figures courtesy of CapFriendly.

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