One of the more prominent remaining free agents is Devils forward Dawson Mercer. While he’s coming off a down season, he has had enough success over his first three NHL seasons that New Jersey would likely want to work out a long-term deal with them. Whether they can afford to, however, might be a different story.
The 22-year-old had the lowest output of his career last season but still managed 20 goals and 13 assists while playing all 82 games for the third straight year. But with a 42-point effort in his rookie season and a 56-point showing in his sophomore campaign, there’s enough of a track record for a long-term deal to potentially make sense.
Looking at some potential comparables, one of their division rivals has a couple of them in Joel Farabee and Travis Konecny (his current deal, not the extension he just signed). Both were post-entry-level pacts, checking in at $5MM and $5.5MM respectively. Mercer’s numbers are better than Farabee’s so it’s likely to come in above that while Mercer’s best year was better than Konecny’s at that point. If we use cap percentages (to reflect the increase in the salary cap at that time), the range of the two deals moves to between $5.333MM and $5.94MM.
Other possible comparable players in that range are Florida’s Anton Lundell ($5MM signed this year) and Nick Schmaltz ($5.875MM). Notably, none of those contracts were for the maximum eight years either; three were six-year agreements while Schmaltz was the exception at seven seasons. At this point, something in the high-$5MM area might be the right fit on a six-year deal for Mercer, one that would buy out two years of UFA eligibility. Going longer (adding on more UFA years) would only push that price tag higher.
But even affording the six-year contract would appear to be a challenge at first glance. At the moment, the team projects to have $4.976MM in cap space for the upcoming season, per PuckPedia, with a projected 22-player roster. They could increase that wiggle room by not carrying a full-sized roster but that leaves them vulnerable to injuries.
It’s also worth mentioning that they have more than $5MM in potential performance bonuses for Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes so they may want to leave themselves some wiggle room to absorb some of those – if earned – on the 2024-25 cap instead of rolling them over to their 2025-26 cap. Additionally, they will almost certainly want to leave themselves some room for in-season movement.
Put it all together and a long-term contract simply isn’t doable, not without moving someone of consequence off their current roster. And while something like that isn’t impossible, a lot of teams are now tight to the cap ceiling so it’s not as easy as it was six weeks ago to move money; let’s face it, it wasn’t all that easy then either.
That squarely pushes the contract needle in the bridge direction for Mercer. A two-year agreement would only cover one arbitration-eligible season but should check in around the $3.5MM per season mark, one that would leave GM Tom Fitzgerald at least $1MM in flexibility heading into the fall. That’s not a lot – especially if there’s an early injury – but that would still have them in reasonable shape. With him being four years away from UFA eligibility, something in the three-to-five-year range would be a bit riskier so it’s less likely to be one of those lengths.
While it might sound simple enough in theory, this is the type of contractual situation that can drag out. If Mercer’s camp wants to hold out for the possibility of a long-term agreement, they’ll need to wait to see if something happens in terms of roster movement over the next six weeks or so. And if both sides are resigned to a short-term agreement, Mercer could simply opt to wait until closer to camp to see if there’s an injury that gives him a bit more leverage and perhaps gives him a chance at a bit more money. Neither of those scenarios are any reason for concern, that’s just sometimes how things play out with players coming off entry-level deals if they’re not signed at this point.
Despite the down year, Mercer is quite likely to be viewed as a key piece of New Jersey’s plans for the foreseeable future. But with how their roster looks, it seems unlikely that they’ll be able to give him the type of contract commensurate with a core player. Barring a change, that contract will have to come after they get through a bridge deal first.
