3 Pipe Dream Trade Targets for the Devils
It's always fun to play armchair GM, so let's come up with some outrageous deals for the New Jersey Devils.
With the Four Nations tournament wrapping up in just four days, it feels as though there’s a growing sense of trades to come — Frank Seravalli said as much on Friday. I recently did a piece on what I believe to be the New Jersey Devils’ ideal trade deadline, but those were relatively boring — trade targets known to be out there.
While that’s all fine and good, let’s have some fun and take a peek at a few of my pipe dream trade targets, coming up with some outrageous trades in the process:
Jordan Kyrou
Someone asked me on one of my Twitter threads if I would be interested in Jordan Kyrou on the Devils if he were made available. I immediately said “yes,” and then pondered on it a bit more and genuinely got giddy at the thought. I’m not sure there is a player I’d rather have.
To be clear, if the Devils’ goal is to get faster — which it should be — Kyrou is the answer. He only ranks in the 79th percentile for top speed this season, but has placed in at least the 91st percentile for speed bursts of 20+ mph in every season that NHL Edge has tracked the statistics (since 2021-22) and even ranked in the 98th percentile for top speed in that season. By all means, he is an explosive skater who has a top-notch top speed and doesn’t take very long to get there.
He’s also a plus shooter and has been for legitimately his entire career (except for one stretch at the end of 2022-23 where he was barely finishing below expected). Kyrou scored 95 goals in 235 games in the three seasons prior to this campaign, and he’s pacing for 33 in 2024-25.
Kyrou excels at rush play and getting shots off, two things the Devils also need to improve on. There isn’t a single type of shot he doesn’t have in his toolkit, being able to beat goaltenders from distance by proxy of a wicked release and ability to change angles on his shots.
He’s also one of the best transition players in the entire NHL, which has to do with his elite speed and above-average hands. He likes the puck on his stick in the neutral zone, so I’m not sure he’d pair particularly well with Jack Hughes, but he would certainly do wonders next to Nico Hischier, who is good enough in transition but doesn’t need possession in the neutral zone.
This would be a tough one for the Devils to fit within the constraints of the salary cap this season, as Kyrou is getting paid $8.125 million until 2031. For the sake of this trade, let’s assume that Ondrej Palat is willing to waive his NMC — he just had a child so that’s so unrealistic, but just assume it anyway for the sake of everyone having fun. St. Louis should be looking to add dynamic young players, particularly on the back end considering they have one defenseman who plays meaningful time under the age of 31.
I know it seems like a lot to include both Simon Nemec and Lenni Hämeenaho, but you also have to consider that 1) they’re taking Palat’s contract which I’m sure is not regarded as an asset to the team, and 2) Kyrou is signed for another six years. For a player of his caliber — one who has floated around a point per game for the last four seasons — and who is signed long-term, this is the cost of business. I can’t remember the last time a star with term was traded, but the Devils sent a first-rounder, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Fabian Zetterlund for Timo Meier, who was “cost controlled” as an expiring RFA. Nemec is a lot better than Mukhamadullin, is younger, and has a higher ceiling, but Zetterlund is likely more impactful than Hämeenaho will be and the Devils don’t have a first to give up. Especially with the cap rising the way it’s going to be over the next three seasons, having Hughes, Jesper Bratt, and Kyrou all right around that $8-million mark would be heaven-sent. Plus, look at how disgusting the Devils’ top-six would be:
Trevor Zegras
There are few things in this world that I’d rather see than Trevor Zegras playing alongside Hughes and Bratt. There is no doubt in my mind that it would instantly become the most fun line in the NHL.
To be honest with you, Zegras’ underlying statistics are, have been, and probably will be middling, particularly from a defensive standpoint. But the point stands that it would be a ton of fun and his name has floated around the trade market for a few seasons now (though less so this year).
He’s largely unable to drive play on his own but he’s a wizard with the puck, being able to make plays with his hands that 99.9% of the league simply cannot do.
The one thing Zegras has going for him from an analytical standpoint is that he has mostly been an above-expected shooter throughout his career. He’s streaky, for sure, but his shot is genuinely deceptive and I think he’d have an easier time getting it off on a better team. He is generally a passenger player and the Ducks aren’t necessarily chock-full of playdrivers.
Plus, there’s that tantalizing level of skill — Zegras can do things that very few in the league can do. It would be an added element to the Devils’ game to have someone who is a threat to score from below the goal line with a Michigan move if he sees any space there at all.
Beyond that, there’s the chemistry that I’m sure Zegras would immediately have with Jack considering they played hockey together for a long, long time. Pair that with the fact that Bratt meshes with literally anyone and makes them better and I think Zegras would actually have a significant uptick in point production. He’s one of the league’s premier passenger players in a vacuum, and Hughes and Bratt are two of the league’s best playdrivers. It’s a recipe for success through and through, and it’s salivating thinking of the three of them playing with their food in the neutral zone and offensive zone with their combination of deception, skating abilities, and hands.
In terms of acquisition cost, this one would be a bit easier from a cap perspective and would cost less than Kyrou because he’s a worse player signed for just two years instead of long-term. Still, it’s undoubtable that the Ducks would be getting one of the Devils’ three stud defense prospects on top of one of their three second-round picks. I threw in Tomas Tatar to make the cap work and middling prospect Kasper Pikkarainen — who has the potential to make it to the NHL in a bottom-six capacity but nothing more than that — to entice Anaheim to retain a bit for the two seasons.
Marco Rossi
Marco Rossi is the one the Devils should have picked instead of Alex Holtz in 2020. Five seasons later, his name has been in trade rumors throughout his career despite being a staple in the Minnesota Wild lineup since last season. That comes especially surprising considering the season he’s having, with 19 goals and 47 total points in 56 games while occasionally centering Minnesota’s top line. He scored 21 goals last season, too, so it’s not like this is a flash in the pan or not projectable to the future.
He isn’t quite the caliber of skater that Kyrou is, but he is above average in both top speed and explosiveness. There are some concerns with his size at 5’9, but what a lot of people simply do not realize is that he’s a stocky 182 pounds at that height. He’s strong on the puck and unafraid to get into the dirty areas of the ice or get aggressive on the forecheck. In transition, he opts to let others carry the puck over the offensive blue line but is active in taking it through the bulk of the neutral zone — he’s an expert at finding players with a pass as they’re approaching the blue line.
He would immediately slot in as the Devils’ third-line center, being able to playdrive like legitimately no other player in the Devils’ bottom six can. Most of this playdriving ability comes from his hockey sense, being able to understand where his teammates are in relation to defenders, and being able to find them with a crisp, clean pass. This opens up space for himself as well, as defenders respect his passing ability enough to let him skate around the O-zone a bit more. He isn’t going to provide much to the team from a defensive standpoint — though he isn’t necessarily weak in that regard — but who cares, considering the complexion of the bottom six as a unit? The squad needs more offense.
His shooting was always a source of scrutiny, but he’s put the work in over the last two seasons and it’s much more of a threat now. He’s scored 40 goals on 34.68 ixG over the past two seasons, which is yet another testament to his improved shot. He possesses excellent hand-eye coordination, turning himself into somewhat of an expert at tips and deflections.
My only speculation for why the Wild would want to trade Rossi is that they have a somewhat crowded center corps. Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman, Marat Khusnutdinov, and Freddy Gaudreau are already in the system, and Danila Yurov and Riley Heidt are in the pipeline. Yurov and Heidt should both challenge Rossi with top-six opportunities and they might want to move off of him to capitalize on his value while also giving way to their two best forward prospects.
The Devils would still have to pay, though, likely in the form of a 2026 first-round pick and B-level-plus prospect. Here’s what I came up with:
Again, losing these pieces would hurt (except for Tatar), but it’s important to remember that 1) this is the cost of business, 2) Rossi has been playing incredible hockey for two years now, and 3) he’s only 23 years old, meaning that there is definitely more in the tank and that he’s cost controlled for the foreseeable future. It would be a poetic move considering the stigma around the Devils’ 2020 draft, and I’m absolutely here for it.
So, there you have it — three never-gonna-happen trades that would be great for the Devils if they somehow happened, and all for different reasons. Kyrou would be the best fit for the team stylistically and performance-wise, Zegras would be the most fun but has no empirical data proving he’d actually be an asset, and Rossi would be a nice story to recover from the Holtz-drafting arc while providing the Devil with top-nine upside.