Saturday, March 4, 2023

Devils add Curtis Lazar

  The New Jersey Devils made a minor swap on the final day of the NHL trading season as the team traded a 2024 fourth-round draft pick to the Vancouver Canucks for forward Curtis Lazar.

The twenty-eight-year-old Lazar has scored three goals with two assists with Vancouver this season after signing with the team in July.

Lazar is essentially a fourth-line player that builds depth for the stretch run and there is a reason that New Jersey will be the sixth team that he has played at a relatively young age.

Lazar can play on the wing or at center, so there is some versatility with him and he can be used as a penalty killer as well.

Lazar will be under contract to the Devils for two more seasons at an affordable one million per year, so he's not going to be a cap killer and he won't be a rental either, which means someone thinks that he can helpful for longer than the playoff run.

Lazar seems (for this season anyway) to be an attempt to replace some of what was lost when Fabian Zetterlund was sent to San Jose in the Timo Meier trade as a bottom-six-line member.

New Jersey continues to try and build a bench crew and at the cost and length, there really isn't a downside to this trade.

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