Devils deadline deals- Vatanen, Simmonds, Domingue move on

The New Jersey Devils were thought to have finished most of their dealings before the trade deadline but made three minor moves at the deadline day with players that will be free agents at the end of the season for the proverbial "something beats nothing" return for moving players to new locales'.

The Devils traded Wayne Simmonds to Buffalo for a fifth-round draft pick in 2021 that could become a fourth-rounder, should the Sabres rally and make the playoffs.
Simmonds scored six goals with sixteen assists for the Devils this season after signing with the team for this season but was unlikely to return to New Jersey for next year.
I get the Devils doing this one as even a fifth-rounder is something for a non-contender, but I don't understand Buffalo making this trade, who is still unlikely to make the playoffs and yet traded a draft pick for a player unlikely to re-sign.

New Jersey then sent backup goaltender Louis Domingue to Vancouver for goaltender Zane McIntyre.
Domingue played in sixteen games for the Devils after being obtained earlier this season from Tampa Bay for a seventh-round draft pick as the backup to Mackenzie Blackwood.
Domingue's record was 3-8-2 with a GAA of 4.03 and was unlikely to return next season with the Devils, but Vancouver was looking for a veteran backup after the recent injury to their starter Jacob Markstrom.
McIntyre will join AHL Binghamton and can also walk at the end of the season.
New Jersey will save a few hundred thousand for doing the Canucks a favor, but I would have hoped they might have gotten the seventh-rounder that they traded to Tampa Bay for that favor.

The biggest deal of the day was announced after the deadline had passed as the Devils traded Sami Vatanen to the Carolina Hurricanes in return for minor leaguers Janne Kuokkanen, Fredrick Claesson, and a fourth-rounder that can become a third-rounder, should Vatanen recover from his current injury to play an unnamed amount of games.
Vatanen scored five goals and eighteen assists in 47 games but missed chunks of time in each of the last two seasons and was somewhat of a disappointment after being obtained in the trade that sent fan favorite Adam Henrique to Anaheim.

The Devils don't have picks in the second or third rounds in the upcoming draft as they traded the second round to Nashville for P.K. Subban and the third to Las Vegas for Nikita Gusev, so I was hoping Vatanen could at least bring one or the other of those picks, but he'll have to get healthy to add that third-rounder.

The centerpiece of the deal is 21-year-old left-winger Janne Kuokkanen, who was the Hurricanes second-round pick from Finland in 2016.
Kuokkanen has played most of the last three years with AHL Charlotte but played eleven games with the Hurricanes in the previous two years without a point.
Kuokkanen scored twelve goals with thirty assists for the Checkers in 52 games, can play center or wing and is regarded as more of a playmaker than a scorer.
Kuokkanen has been mentioned as a player that was blocked by the Hurricanes depth rather than a fringe prospect, so perhaps the Devils did gain something out of the trade.

Defenseman Frederic Claesson has spent time in the NHL with Ottawa and the Rangers, playing 113 games over four seasons with four goals and sixteen assists during that tenure.
The 27-year-old Swede has spent the entire season with AHL Charlotte, scoring three goals with 16 assists in 47 games, but at 27 years of age, Claesson is considered a depth piece at best and is headed to New Jersey to replace Vatanen on the roster to finish the season for the Devils.

This isn't a poor return for Tom Fitzgerald and the Devils, as Fitzgerald navigates a rebuilding process while at the same time trying to stake his claim to the permanent general manager's position.
Janne Kuokkanen seems like a prospect that could help the team next season and should Sami Vatanen play enough to bump the fourth-rounder to the needed third, the trade looks even better.
The 2021 fifth-rounder for Wayne Simmonds isn't a ton, but it's something for a guy that wouldn't be around next season anyway, but I still can't figure out why New Jersey couldn't even get a seventh for Louis Domingue from a team in need as Vancouver currently is.

Still, looking at these deals in addition to the trades with the Islanders (Andy Greene) and Lightning (Blake Coleman), Fitzgerald and the Devils did pretty well on the overall, so I'm fairly pleased.
Now the Devils pretty much know what they have unless they make a move or two near draft day and the question becomes how will they use those assets to improve a disappointing team with a fan base that could be beginning to forget what winning hockey is like in New Jersey.

Shot Down Again-Devils lose Shootout to Flyers

The New Jersey Devils kept their current string going in the final game of their homestand, but few portions of the continuing string were positives as another loss, another shootout loss and another blown lead at home were part of the 4-3 home shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.
Sean Couturier beat Mackenzie Blackwood as the third Flyer shooter for the only goal of the shootout.
The Devils did receive a point but only totaled six points from a possible twelve from their longest homestand of the season.
New Jersey goals to Sami Vatanen (4 Power Play), Taylor Hall (2), and Wayne Simmonds (1 Power Play) in the defeat.
The Devils begin a five-game road trip in Raleigh tomorrow against the Carolina Hurricanes before that lovely Western Canada swing that everyone loves so much!

Hell Raisers

1) Hey, the power play was working!
Two of the Devils' three goals were scored with the extra man on the ice and their two goals were half of the power-play goals that the Devils had scored all season entering the game.
If there is anything to be hopeful about, perhaps we can start with some improvement on the PP!

2) Wayne Simmonds scored his first goal as a Devil with one of those man-advantage goals and ended a run of some of the worst luck that I've seen from a Devil.
I'm sure Simmonds would have been happier with a win over his former team, but scoring his first goal against them is the next best thing.

3) Taylor Hall finished with a goal and an assist in his first game after his observations on fans booing the team at home.
The goal was a highlight as Hall slid into Flyers goalie Carter Hart seconds after the puck slid through the legs of Hall.

4) The shootout woes continue as no Devils (Palmieri, Hughes, and Hall in this one) were able to score past Carter Hart.
It's funny how shootouts work as on paper, one would think that the Devils should be fairly strong with creative offensive players and players skilled in the open ice, but yet it isn't happening.
Sometimes these things come and go during a season and others just don't have the knack for it.

5) Sean Couturier's game-winner against Mackenzie Blackwood brought the old Peter Forsberg shootout move to mind and no one can blame Blackwood for being unable to make the stop.

6) I know it cost the Devils a power play ( that the Flyers didn't score on) and a ten-minute misconduct for Kyle Palmieri,  but I loved his going right at Matt Niskanen after Niskanen drove Jack Hughes into the boards and then to the concussion area for a mandatory check from the physician.
Jack Hughes is slightly built and at 18 years old, teams are going to test him.
Hughes will eventually have to face some of this and stand up to it, but it was something that I have been waiting for to see who would pick up the gauntlet and defend the future franchise player.
Kudos to Kyle Palmieri for stepping up.

7) Minutes before the game, the Devils obtained veteran goalie Louis Domingue from Tampa Bay for a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2021 draft.
Domingue played 26 games last season for Tampa Bay, winning 21 of those for the first-place Lightning with a 2.88 GAA and a save percentage of  .908 as the main backup behind Andrei Vasilevskiy.
The twenty-seven-year-old Domingue played a few games for Tampa's AHL farm club in Syracuse and was assigned to the Devils AHL team in Binghamton where he should be a veteran presence to younger netminders, Evan Cormier and Gilles Senn.
Either Cormier or Senn will likely be dropped to the Devils ECHL squad (Adirondack Thunder) and I'm not sure which will move to make space.
Cormier has played in six games, Senn in five, with similar numbers and ages (Senn 23, Cormier 22 in a few days) it's hard to say.
A tiebreaker could be what Ray Shero thinks of Senn, who played in the Swiss league last season, and how much he wants to challenge him vs  Cormier, who played in the AHL last season.

8) Just keep in mind this seemingly small deal as the season wears on for another reason- the awful start for Cory Schneider.
If Schneider's play doesn't improve, he would be a candidate for a buyout and should that happen Louis Domingue would be a low-cost veteran backup to move to the roster.
That would be a worst-case scenario because that would mean Schneider was so bad that either the season's essentially over or nearing that point with Schneider's play being a major problem in a disappointing season.
We are nowhere near that point, but remember this note should it be needed.

Devils ink Simmonds in Free Agency Start

The free agency period started Monday in the National Hockey League and the New Jersey Devils added one player to their roster thus far, one that their fan base has a less than fond relationship with through the years in right winger Wayne Simmonds.

The soon to be 31 years old Simmonds split last season between Philadelphia and Nashville scoring 17 goals (five on the power play), added eleven assists for the season and signed a one year deal for five million dollars.

Here's basically what you get with Simmonds- a big, physical player that had scored twenty-four or more goals every season before last season, except for the strike-shortened one, he's not a sieve defensively, will provide plenty of toughness (want to bang around Jack Hughes? Get ready to meet Wayne Simmonds) and will help on the power play.
However, Simmonds did see his statistics decline last season (Much like his latter season teammate P.K.Subban) and as All About The Jersey wrote "players that play a physical game typically don't tend to age well, as in the decline of (TRS favorite) Milan Lucic" and that's a great point.
Rough and tumble players will see their bodies break down quicker, usually aren't fleet skaters, to start, and often become albatrosses, unable to keep pace with speed and unable to overpower as they once could find themselves quickly obsolete.

However, the Devils have plenty of cap space remaining as the deal for Simmonds barely brings them to the floor of the cap, the one year contract allows them to see if Simmonds is in the twilight of a career or his numbers dipped simply because he wasn't a great fit with what Nashville does and can easily subtract him should the latter be true.
It is a semi-low (no matter the cap situation, it's still five million) risk, with the chance of a substantial reward.

On a personal level, I know Devils fans (especially Rachel, who short of the Devils signing Scott Hartnell might have preferred signing anyone else in the game) may have some issues with Wayne Simmonds being a former member of the Flyers, where he seemed to often play extremely well (often aggressively so) against the Devils.
I get it.
However, think of Wayne Simmonds in the same way Devils fans did about David Clarkson as in the type of player that you love playing for you and more than likely despise playing for the opposing team.

It'll be interesting to see what Wayne Simmonds has left, but I know one thing for sure- It might take a few games to get used to seeing Wayne Simmonds with red accenting black rather than orange being the supporting color!