Devils Will Not Find It Easy To Trade Hamilton

Dougie Hamilton is unlikely to finish out his current contract with the New Jersey Devils. The 32-year-old has three years left on his deal at $9 million AAV. While he is a very good offensive talent who's excellent when he's healthy, the New Jersey Devils drafted Luke Hughes and he is ready to take over.

The Devils are absolutely keeping Hughes and the 21-year-old is without a contract for next year as a RFA. To potentially keep the cap much lower for the entirety of the contract, signing the young d-man to a long-term deal right now would play best for them. But given the team has just $6 million in cap space to spend and will have to spend more on goaltending next year, clearing some space to sign Hughes, deal with goaltending, and add to the top-6 would be ideal. That can only happen if Hamilton is moved out.

Frank Seravalli said that he "doesn't know if teams are necessarily lining up to get Dougie Hamilton off their hands at that cap hit. The Devils are going to have to make some different decisions." Maybe there has to be a little cap retention involved like how the San Jose Sharks kept $1.5 million AAV of Erik Karlsson's contract or the Chicago Blackhawks retained $2.5 million AAV of Seth Jones' contract. The difference here is that the Devils are a playoff team, not a bottom-feeder, so retaining cap to move out a productive player is a tough move.

Hamilton put up nine goals and 40 points in 64 games last season and was the go-to defenseman on the top power-play. Hughes really stepped up in his absence, making the Devils more comfortable to explore a team without Hamilton moving forward to allocate the money where it's more needed.

Hamilton has 45 goals and 160 points in 220 games for the Devils, but the last season he was fully healthy in 2022-23, the elite d-man scored 22 goals and 74 points while finishing sixth in Norris trophy voting. New Jersey could absolutely move him if they retained cap, but that will be the question and if a team steps forward to become a frontrunner to acquire the game-changing defenseman.