3 Hidden Gem Offer Sheet Targets for the Devils
While the obvious offer-sheet candidates are just that, there are a few names the Devils could target that are outside the box.
With just three weeks remaining until the NHL Entry Draft and NHL free agency, things are going to start to pick up around the league in terms of rumors, trades, and signings. From now until July 1 (and of course, thereafter), I’ll be hard at work going in-depth on all things New Jersey Devils. From draft targets to trade targets and everything in between, I’ve got you covered to the best of my abilities.
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For viewership’s sake, I sure hope Devils’ GM Tom Fitzgerald’s words in April hold true — offer sheets should become more commonplace this off-season and beyond, considering the value that Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg were able to bring to the St. Louis Blues this season. Fitzgerald and the Devils would be wise to follow in that path, considering that it’s unequivocally the cheapest way to acquire truly high-end talent without spending as much as you should in today’s NHL.
There are certainly obvious candidates — K’Andre Miller of the New York Rangers, Evan Bouchard of the Edmonton Oilers, any one of JJ Peterka, Jack Quinn, Bowen Byram, and Ryan McLeod of the Buffalo Sabres — but the more fun exercise, in my opinion, is to think about some hidden gem, dark-horse offer-sheet candidates.
With that in mind, while there are surely a ton of those around the league, here are my favorite three targets for the Devils:
1. Mavrik Borque
It’s no secret that the Dallas Stars are in quite the cap predicament, with a shade under $5 million to work with and just 16 contracts signed. Even with Jamie Benn and his $9.5 million AAV coming off the books, the combination of the Mikko Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston extensions neutered any hopes they had of bringing back the same crew or getting by without having to shed one or two players that have no business playing elsewhere.
Mavrik Borque, their former top prospect, is one of those players.
The energetic 23-year-old center/winger just finished his first full season in the NHL, one in which he scored 11 goals and 25 total points in a bottom-six capacity. He displayed a phenomenal understanding of defensive positioning during that time, to boot.
While better suited for rush-oriented hockey at this point in his offensive development, Borque’s knack for pouncing on loose pucks (which is a skill he earned through his hard-working, go-go disposition on the ice) comes in handy during cyclical play as well. He doesn’t quite shoot as much as you’d like to see, putting just 80 shots on net in his 73 games, but his mechanics are tidy and threatening from distance as well as in-tight.
The skill within the former 30th overall selection’s game is undeniable. He’s got hands for days and his IQ is off-the-charts. There are times, even in his limited experience in the NHL thus far, when your natural reaction to a play he found was “How?” To me, this screams eventual 60-plus-point production.
With Dallas’s impending cap crunch, Borque is going to — or at least should — garner a ton of looks from many different organizations. While I would say that he can easily be had for $2,340,037, the maximum offer sheet value where the compensation is just a third-round selection, I would imagine that upping the ante just a little bit, to the cap hit threshold above that, would make it more enticing for him to sign with New Jersey as opposed to the 20+ teams who should be looking for his services.
Prospective offer sheet value: $2.95 million.
Compensation: 2nd-round pick
2. Emil Heineman
Yesterday, in the second part of the Q&A, I detailed Emil Heineman of the Montreal Canadiens as a dark horse target for an offer sheet.
The 23-year-old winger has room to develop further from an offensive standpoint, but is already legitimately one of the best defensive forwards in the NHL. His positioning is perfect; he will never not keep his body between the puck carrier and his own net. On top of that, his stick checking is phenomenal, and his discipline in keeping the puck on the perimeter is unparalleled.
From an offensive standpoint, while obviously skilled and having room to grow, Heineman hasn’t quite hit his stride. The 10 goals and 18 total points are a testament to that. He does have, though, obvious, palatable strengths in his toolkit, like a pinpoint-accurate shot and explosive skating.
As I said in the Q&A, the Canadiens have a pretty tidy cap sheet, with perhaps their only “bad” contract being Patrik Laine, who expires after the 2025-26 season and is always good for solid production and goal scoring anyway. Heineman would be difficult to pry away from Montreal without overpaying for his services.
The workaround there is to offer him a deal worth well more than what he should get for just one year before locking him up long-term, a la Jesperi Kotkaniemi of the Carolina Hurricanes. That way, the Canadiens are dissuaded from matching the offer sheet. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, of course, but just enough to make the Habs second-guess if he’s worth it.
Prospective offer sheet value: $3.25 million.
Compensation: 2nd-round pick
3. Maxim Tsyplakov
The New York Islanders have over $20 million in cap space to work with this off-season. Sounds great, right?
Enter Noah Dobson and Alexander Romanov, two expiring RFA defensemen who their new GM, Matthew Darche, just labeled as “core players.” Dobson, who has been the team’s #1 defenseman for years now and has a 70-point campaign under his belt, is projected to be getting an eight-year deal worth north of $10 million AAV by both Evolving Hockey’s and AFP Analytics’ contract models. Romanov, meanwhile, while not quite as effective a defenseman, is predicted to be getting either a four-year deal (Evolving Hockey) worth $5.64 million annually or a one-year deal (AFP Analytics) worth $4.48 million. Either way, it seems like ~$15 million will be tied up in those two players alone.
The Islanders then have decisions to make on Scott Perunovich, Tony DeAngelo, Mike Reilly, Marc Gatcomb, Hudson Fasching, Matt Martin, Simon Holmstrom, and, of course, Maxim Tsyplakov. To add to the conundrum, they’ll only have 10 forwards already on the roster.
Whoever they draft at first overall at the end of the month — Matthew Schaefer or Michael Misa (who they probably should prefer) — will suck up a shade under $1 million. That leaves them with $4-something million to work with and several spots to fill.
Tsyplakov would be a perfect target to siphon away from Long Island.
The 26-year-old winger finished his first season in the NHL with 10 goals and 35 total points while operating in a middle-six role and sported solid two-way underlying numbers to boot.
Tsyplakov is an above-average skater with solid hands, making him a threat in both zone entries and zone exits. He can get overzealous with the puck when leaving the defensive zone, turning it over a good bit, but Keefe’s “fight the panic” system generally counteracts that trait from forwards and does not worry me in the slightest.
When established in the zone, the 6’3, 210-pound forward is a dual threat, though he is probably best labeled a shooter as opposed to a playmaker on a micro-scale, not that you’d guess that based on his box score statistics. His strong suit, positionally, is the inner slot. Tsyplakov is a rebound hound, with an innate ability to know exactly where the puck is going to end up before it gets there.
With the Islanders projected to have some major cap woes, barring a cap dump (Anders Lee, JG Pageau), Tsyplakov presents as a slam-dunk offer sheet target that the Devils would be wise to pounce on.
Prospective offer sheet value: $3.75 million.
Compensation: 2nd-round pick
Hopefully, it really is the off-season of offer sheets. In my eyes, they’ve always been the single best way to improve a franchise for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they target players already in or entering their primes rather than past them, and secondly, the compensation is usually more than reasonable, as compared to what these players would cost were they acquired via trade.
The thought process of “Well, what if offer sheets happen to me?” has always been an illogical one to me, as you could just push for pre-July 1 contract extensions for anyone worthwhile in your organization. Doesn’t matter then, eh?