Devils trade Tyler Toffoli to Winnipeg

    The New Jersey Devils traded for Tyler Toffoli in the off-season, thinking that Toffoli would be the scorer that the Devils needed to lift a young playoff team to the next level.

Toffoli has done his job with 26 goals and 18 assists. However, the Devils haven't held up their end of the bargain and with Toffoli's ability to test the free-agent market, Tom Fitzgerald decided to get something for Toffoli as he shipped him to the Winnipeg Jets at the trade deadline.

New Jersey will receive the Jets' third-rounder in the 2024 draft and Winnipeg's second-round pick in 2025.

The Devils will pay half of Toffoli's contract for the remainder of the season as part of the trade.

Toffoli did his job as a force around the net but he's not a strong skater and on a team built around speed, there were times that Toffoli's skating was a hindrance and made one wonder how good of a fit with the team.

All of that said, it's tough to turn down a guy who puts the puck in the net consistently but the Devils and Toffoli weren't close to a contract extension, so moving him makes sense, especially when you consider the Devils gave a third-rounder and Yegor Sharangovich for Toffoli to begin.

Sharangovich has scored twenty-five goals for Calgary this season but he struggled last season and it's hard to criticize the team for including him in the trade, so this is good value for Toffoli, all things considered- good value but not great.

Some trades just don't work out and it's not always on the player, Toffoli put up the numbers that the Devils expected but he didn't exceed them although it wasn't due to a lack of effort.

Was it Lindy Ruff? 

Maybe, hard to say but the Devils have something for a player that they would have lost for nothing in a month after a non-playoff season.

It may be grasping for straws but it is something.

Tom Fitzgerald wasn't finished dealing with the Devils making three more trades.

I'll be working on these over the next day or so.

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