3 Moves The New Jersey Devils Should Make This Summer

The New Jersey Devils ended this season with a 19-30-7 record. They are rebuilding right now, so it was not that surprising. Yet, going into next season, it appears that they are looking to strengthen the team this summer. They already made a fantastic trade with the Colorado Avalanche that saw them acquire top-four defenseman, Ryan Graves. However, there are a few more tasks that they should complete this summer.

Here are three.

Sign Goalie: MacKenzie Blackwood struggled a bit this season, but that is to be expected from young goaltenders. He has shown that he can be a solid starting goalie in the past, as evidenced by his .915 save percentage in 2019-20. However, the best course of action is to form a strong goalie tandem from here. With over $32 million of cap space, they can bring in a talented goalie to support Blackwood. Some examples include Jonathan Bernier, Jaroslav Halak and James Reimer. These three are all used to be in 1A-1B tandems from their previous teams.

Sign Top-Six Winger: Again, with them having so much cap space, they can afford to bring in a top-six winger, too. The Devils were near the bottom of the league in goals for, so adding a winger who can score would be ideal. They have two young centers in Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes who would benefit from more support around them. There are plenty of options for the Devils to choose from, as players like Brandon Saad, Tomas Tatar and old friend Blake Coleman are available through free agency.

Extend Two Key RFAs: Yegor Sharangovich and Janne Kuokkanen were two big surprises for the Devils this season. Both of them played out their first full seasons in the league and put up respectable offensive totals. In 50 games, Kuokkanen had eight goals and 25 points. Sharangovich also played very well, as he had 16 goals and 30 points in 54 games. They each could end up being big parts of the Devils moving forward, so extending them should be a real priority.