3 Potential Trade Destinations For Devils' Seamus Casey

The New Jersey Devils are going to have to do something about their defense. They have eight defensemen who should absolutely be in the NHL and three more who have either played plenty of games, or are capable of holding a spot on the roster.

The eight d-men I would nail down as absolute NHL players who should be in the lineup every game are Dougie Hamilton, Luke Hughes, Brett Pesce, Jonas Siegenthaler, Brenden Dillon, Johnathan Kovacevic, Simon Nemec, and Seamus Casey. The other three include Kurtis MacDermid, Dennis Cholowski, and Calen Addison.

That is a lot of options and in most cases, is too many when plenty of them hold a lot of value. The Devils wanted to mix in veterans with their core drafted players, but on defense, that not only sped up the rebuild and shot them into contention, it reduced the space for highly drafted or highly skilled players to work their way in easier. I'm speaking of not only Casey, who has become a trade candidate, but Nemec as well.

One of the two are going to be traded, and I'd bet that it's the one who hasn't gotten as good of a shot in the NHL and wasn't drafted second overall. With all of the defensemen standing in Casey's way signed for multiple years, these are a few destinations he could be traded to and get a better opportunity to play in the NHL immediately.

Pittsburgh Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins are going to have space on their blue line very soon with Erik Karlsson as a top trade candidate as well as Connor Clifton, Matt Dumba, and Ryan Shea all UFAs next offseason. The Penguins have a couple of options, but Jack St. Ivany and Alexander Alexeyev are both 25+ years old and have limited NHL experience while Owen Pickering plays the left side, as does Alexeyev. If the Penguins are rebuilding, they need a young defenseman like Casey. He likely won't turn into a number one, but a 2-4 works just fine as he's 21 years old and scored four goals and eight points in 14 games last season.

San Jose Sharks

The San Jose Sharks and Devils have been known to make deals with each other, and why not considering they're in opposite conferences and in different places. With that being said, the current defense is a very short-term look and most will be gone within the year. Mario Ferraro, John Klingberg, Timothy Liljegren, Nick Leddy, and Vincent Desharnais are all in the last year of their contracts and will be UFAs. The future of the back-end holds Jack Thompson, Sam Dickinson, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Luca Cagnoni, and potentially one of the second round picks over the past two drafts in Haoxi Wang or Leo Sahlin Wallenius. The problem for the Sharks is that five of those six are left shot d-men, so Casey would be a welcomed addition to the right side to play on his strong side. With another rebuilding team, it makes sense to add where the team missed out on defense high in the 2025 draft.

Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche may be a Stanley Cup contender year after year, but that doesn't mean the team can't bring in some young NHL-ready talent to inject some life into the lineup. Much of the team is on the older side and in their 30s or pushing it. The Avalanche added 40-year-old Brent Burns in free agency, but it is just on a one-year deal. At a point this season, there will be openings on the back-end for players to come in and get some reps with John Manson being injury-prone and some of the other defensemen likely to miss a handful of games throughout. Casey won't get as many games as he may on a rebuilding team, but he should have a full time role in the NHL by next season on a very good team instead with a potential to climb into the 2RD spot soon enough.