3 Bargain Bin Free Agents the Devils Should Target
With the New Jersey Devils' need to acquire cheap depth talent, here are a few names they should keep on their radar.
As much as I’m still disappointed about the Devils’ postseason departure, I really am quite excited to continue diving into the off-season content I’ve been looking forward to for a while. From now until early July, I’m going to be hard at work providing as much content as I can throw at you in every way imaginable, from free agency to trades to the NHL Entry Draft.
To support me, all I ask is that you press the “Subscribe” button if you haven’t already. This is a completely free-of-charge blog with the sole intention of reaching as wide an audience as I can, hoping to share my opinions with as many as possible. By pressing the button below, you’ll be sent the articles I post on a daily basis through your email, but the real help you’ll be giving me is in putting my name out there more in the Substack algorithm. If you want to go a step further, consider sharing this publication with your friends, family, and every Devils fan you know. It means a ton — thank you!
According to New Jersey Devils’ GM Tom Fitzgerald, the team is looking at a bit of an overhaul this off-season, presumably with the bottom-six, considering the defense corps is basically set in stone and the core pieces are unlikely to go anywhere.
In an ideal bottom-six, a fourth-line finds ways to produce and/or largely keep the puck in the offensive zone for their minimal ice time while getting paid at or close to league minimum, while the third line is suited for more valuable players (both on-ice value and contract value). The Devils need to find a way to address their fourth-line woes without spending much.
Tomas Tatar headed overseas this morning, signing a two-year deal with the Swiss League. Nathan Bastian, Daniel Sprong, Justin Dowling, and Curtis Lazar are all unrestricted free agents. While Sprong and Bastian are probably worth keeping for their own reasons — Sprong being one of the more efficient point producers in the league and Bastian being a stalwart defensive presence — the writing is on the wall for a complete rework.
With that in mind, I’ve compiled a few names whom I would be ecstatic with acquiring in free agency, especially considering the contracts they’ll be likely to sign. For this list, I narrowed it down to players who are projected to make $1 million or below.
1. Cole Koepke
After garnering a couple of cups of coffee in the NHL with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2022-23 and 2023-24, Cole Koepke was offered a one-year deal with the Boston Bruins for the 2024-25 season. There, the 27-year-old logged his first full year as a pro, scoring 10 goals and 17 total points across 73 games while playing in a fourth-line role.
The former sixth-round pick from 2018 is a speedster, having logged 141 bursts of 20+ mph, as compared to the league-average 76.5, and logged a top speed in the 74th percentile of the NHL. If nothing else, the Devils showed in 2024-25 that their bottom-six lacked any sort of oomph, and Koekpe brings that.
In fact, there really isn’t anything Koekpe doesn’t do well from an underlying standpoint, even despite the stigma around the limited role he’s in. The points weren’t necessarily there, but he received well-above-average marks in shooting, passing, and transitioning the puck from zone to zone on a per-60 basis:
Between passing and shooting, Koekpe is more of a facilitator in his natural playstyle. From the inner slot, he is effective at identifying the right teammates to pass to and, generally speaking, is able to put together a zippy pass directly to their stick. No player on the Bruins was more efficient at passing directly into scoring chances, and yes, that includes David Pastrnak.
Koekpe also excels at transitioning the puck into the offensive zone and supports play throughout the offensive zone, prolonging puck possessions by using his smart facilitation abilities and penchant for retrieving loose pucks. He’s incredibly active on the forecheck, too, where he is able to pressure puck-carrying defenders into forced turnovers before allowing his team to set up their system.
From a defensive perspective, there’s also a ton to love about Koepke’s game. His retrieval abilities are present in his own zone, again pressuring the puck-carriers until they are forced into losing possession before pouncing on the puck himself. From there, he is efficient at turning those retrievals into zone exits. For a team whose bottom line didn’t do enough of that, he would be an asset.
Evolving Hockey predicts that his next contract will be a one-year deal worth $830,700, while AFP projects his deal to come in as a two-year contract with an AAV of $1.3 million. I highly doubt the latter of the two to be true, and would anticipate a one-year deal at sub-$1 million. Either way, the Devils should be all over it.
2. Jakub Vrana
Once upon a time, Jakub Vrana was a highly-touted player. He was selected 13th overall in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, won a Stanley Cup in 2017-18, and scored 49 goals in two seasons, from 2018-20, while playing in an almost exclusively third-line, second-power-play unit role. After potting 52 points while playing on the third line only to see his ice time diminished in the subsequent season, Vrana expressed some concern to the Capitals and was traded to the Detroit Red Wings. There, he was handed a top-six role, playing over 17 minutes a night, and he scored 11 points (eight goals) in 11 games.
Then, he was hit with an atrocious shoulder injury that saw him get surgery and miss the remainder of the season. The next season, he came back in a third-line role and potted 13 goals and 19 points in 26 games before admitting that he “wasn’t feeling right” and entering the NHLPA Player Assistance Program for reasons he has not disclosed. He returned only to be immediately waived and sent to the minors, and has struggled to get consistent NHL playing time since.
As a person, there’s a lot to root for there.
As a player, there’s a lot to root for, too. The 6’0, 197-pound sniper has been one of the most efficient goal scorers in the league despite his limited appearances. In 2022-23, he played 20 games with the St. Louis Blues and scored 10 times. This past season, before the Capitals perplexingly waived him, he scored seven times in 26 games while playing fewer than 10 minutes a night. That’s an 82-game pace of 22 goals… while skating for just 9:50 per game.
On a per-60 basis, he scored more goals than the likes of Timo Meier, Sam Bennett, Mitch Marner, and Dylan Guenther in 2024-25, and that includes the 13-game stretch with the Nashville Predators, who picked him up off waivers, where Vrana scored just two goals. In his career, he has never scored fewer goals than his individual expected goals (ixG) in a season, which means that he is a sniper in the truest sense of the term.
He isn’t one for the defensive side of things, which is perhaps why he has struggled to get a full season since his shoulder injury, but there’s no denying the offensive talent. For a Devils team that largely struggled to score in 2024-25 and desperately needs depth that can put the puck in the back of the net, Vrana is an excellent target and checks a ton of boxes.
The Devils should be looking to add speed, and Vrana has a ton of it — despite playing in just 39 games this season, Vrana nearly logged a league-average amount of speed bursts of 20+ mph and held a top speed in the 73rd percentile. His goalscoring aptitude is a testament to his shooting abilities and mechanics — he’s quick-triggered, accurate, and has an extremely hard shot. So what if he needs to work on the defensive part of his game?
Evolving Hockey projects his next contract to be a one-year deal worth $962,500, while AFP projects that he’s going to get a one-year contract at the league-minimum value ($775,000). Sign me up for either of those.
3. Craig Smith
I’ll be the first one to admit I wasn’t wholly familiar with Smith’s game until I was doing research for this piece. After watching back a couple of Blackhawks games, though, and doing my due diligence on the analytical side of things, I believe that he would be an excellent bargain-bin target.
Though he was more effective in the earlier stages of his career — he scored 20 or more goals in five of six seasons with the Predators from 2013 to 2019 — he’s still an efficient goal-getter in the more limited role he’s been relegated to in the twilight of his career.
Simply put, Smith, 35, likes to shoot the puck. A lot.
It sounds extremely niche, but if you’re looking for a player to bang home a rebound on an odd-man situation, Smith is your guy. He isn’t usually the puck carrier in transition, nor is he usually the shooter, but you can be damn sure he’s going to put the rebound from said opportunity on (and usually in) the net.
Rebounds are his game in general, even despite the niche situation being where he excels the most at it. He’s a hound in front of the net, finding loose pucks to turn into scoring chances at will.
He has great puck discipline from that area, identifying that, at some points, when he has possession near the net, the better play is to dole the puck off to a teammate instead of trying to jam it in himself.
On the defensive front, Smith won’t contribute much. He can overcommit to puck tracking and get caught out of position without the recovery ability of some better-skating players — he has average speed, not anything more. His defensive deficiencies aren’t for a lack of trying, though, as his work ethic is without question.
AFP thinks that Smith’s next deal will be a one-year contract with a cap hit of around $950,000, while Evolving Hockey believes he will be getting a one-year deal at $1.2 million. He’s on the upper end of what I consider to be “bargain bin,” but would be a worthwhile endeavor regardless.
With the Devils’ imminent fourth-line revamp, Tom Fitzgerald would be wise to target any of these three players. Koekpe is a jack-of-all-trades in both zones and is quick and just 27 years of age. Vrana, meanwhile, hasn’t gotten the opportunity he deserves at the NHL level in the past few seasons and would provide an immediate goal-scoring spark to the bottom six. Lastly, there’s Smith, who drives play and shoots a ton, while sacrificing on the defensive end of things. I would be ecstatic with any of these three suiting up in the Black & Red next season.
Honorable Mention: Anthony Mantha —
Mantha will likely be too expensive to consider for these slots, but is an offensive powerhouse and fits the bill of Fitzgerald’s size requirements. At 6’5 and 235 pounds, Mantha is quite similar to Vrana in the sense that he’s battled some injuries and healthy scratching but is extremely efficient. He’s more of a third-liner, in my opinion, and I have a hard time believing that he’s going to make just $1 million a year. Still, a worthy venture in my eyes.