Devils acquire Tyler Toffoli

 Five minutes after I posted about the New Jersey Devils trading Mackenzie Blackwood to the San Jose Sharks, I checked the news one last time for the night and discovered that Tom Fitzgerald wasn't finished with his pre-draft dealing as Fitzgerald traded Yegor Sharangovich and their third round selection (80th overall) to the Calgary Flames for right winger Tyler Toffoli as the Flames continue to blow up their roster.

The draft pick is returning to Calgary as their original choice through Seattle, and Columbus before the Devils obtained the choice from the Blue Jackets in the Damon Severson earlier this month.

Tyler Toffoli scored thirty-four goals with thirty-nine assists, leading the Flames in both categories along with a plus-sixteen for Calgary last season, and gives New Jersey another forward capable of playing on either of their top lines.

Toffoli is thirty-one and last season was the best of his career as the top option on a non-playoff team, so there are questions if Toffoli can match those numbers or at least approach them in New Jersey.

Toffoli is in the final season of a four-year contract that he originally signed with Montreal and he will be making 4.25 million, which would be a bargain for the Devils, should Toffoli finish with similar statistics as he did last season in Calgary.

I would suspect that the arrival of Toffoli means that the team isn't likely to re-sign Tomas Tatar or Miles Wood, or perhaps even both could be on their way out the door.

Should the Devils decide to allow both of the pending free agents to leave and considering that they traded Sharangovich, Tom Fitzgerald could have one move for a forward at a bargain price in the works before the start of the season.

Yegor Sharangovich was soon to be a restricted free agent on July 1st and the Devils were expected to shop him around as their most desirable non-core trade asset.

Sharangovich has shown signs of being a potential top-six forward and in 2021-22, Sharangovich scored twenty-four goals with twenty-two assists to appear to be on the verge of a bigger breakout season.

Instead, Sharangovich regressed a bit with his numbers dropping to thirteen goals and seventeen assists.

Some of that is due to the Devils' improvement last season, Sharangovich wasn't as key to the New Jersey offense, but he did lose some ice time, and some have speculated that the lost ice time could have been due to Sharangovich's skating as not a good fit with New Jersey's faster-skating young talent.

Sharangovich is still only twenty-five, has a better-than-average shot and could score thirty goals on the Flames' first line next season depending on just how many players Calgary's GM Craig Conroy jettisons before the season begins.

You have to like this trade for the Devils considering that they moved a restricted free agent that may not have been a perfect fit with the talent on the team and a third-round draft pick for a solid veteran winger that might be able to clean up around the net to add something that for as good as last years team was, lacked a bit in the postseason.

Tom Fitzgerald isn't resting on last year's improvement, he's preparing to go to the next level as soon as this coming season.

The addition of Tyler Toffoli is a very good start to that process.

As of now, the Devils will not have a choice on the first day of the draft.

They have the following selections on the final day

Round 2- 58 Overall

Round 4- 122

Round 5- 154

Round 6- 164 (From San Jose for Mackenzie Blackwood)

Round 6- 186

Round 7- 218