Grading the Devils' First Day of Free Agency
NHL Free Agency began yesterday, so let's talk about how the New Jersey Devils did on day one.
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It’s the most exciting part of the year for off-season hockey fans: NHL Free Agent Frenzy.
July 1 marks the true start of the off-season, a day (usually) chock-full of exciting signings and trades as players become unrestricted free agents and have clause updates within their contracts.
While the 2025 free agent class is quite a weak one, the Devils made a few quality signings to bolster their team without spending a ton of money, something that concerned just about every Devils fan in the world.
With that in mind, let’s grade each individual move they made on free agent day:
Jake Allen: 5 Years, $1.8 Million AAV: A+
When it was reported that the Devils were getting close to a deal with pending UFA goaltender Jake Allen, I was mortified — he was reportedly asking for ~$5 million on the open market. There were teams allegedly willing to give it to him.
All that stress was immediately released when the deal itself was announced.
Last season, Allen ranked 9th in the entire NHL in goals saved above expected (GSAx). Furthering that, he ranked third in the league in GSAx per 60 minutes, making him objectively one of the best goalies in the league last season in Sheldon Keefe’s system. For $1.8 million, that is an absolute heist.
The value of the deal was further exacerbated by goalie contracts that were handed out later in the day. Dan Vladar, whom I had heard was on the Devils’ radar, was signed to a two-year deal worth $3.35 million per year by the Philadelphia Flyers. Alex Lyon was signed by the Sabres to a two-year contract worth $1.5 million annually. Hell, even Vitek Vanecek was given $1.5 million.
Allen is significantly better than anyone on that list, and he was signed for just under half the cost of Vladar, and barely better than the bottom-feeding Vanecek and Lyon. It was an excellent move by the Devils’ brass.
Connor Brown: 4 Years, $3 Million AAV: B
The Devils inked veteran speedster Connor Brown to a four-year, $3 million AAV contract yesterday afternoon — the first of their UFA signings for the day. The 31-year-old right-winger appeared in all 82 games in 2024-25, logging 13 goals and 30 total points in a predominantly bottom-six role with the Edmonton Oilers. In 10 playoff games, Brown scored five goals and nine points.
There’s a bit of a misconception around how Brown plays the game, in my opinion, in that most people assume he’s a pure grinder, making his money on the forecheck and through winning board battles for his more talented teammates. The reality there, though, is that Brown isn’t anything special on the forecheck — he actually logged fewer than average offensive zone pressures per 60 minutes this past season — and is much more of a rush facilitator than people give him credit for.
In particular, Brown uses his speed — he ranked in the 85th percentile for speed bursts of 20+ mph — to contribute as the second man on rush opportunities, acting as a passing option for odd-man chances. While he can do damage in transition with the puck on his stick, he prefers to dole it off to a teammate better suited for neutral zone play (Cody Glass, perhaps) and slink into a passing-option position instead.
While playing within a cyclical offense isn’t Brown’s forte, he still does provide some value in his presence in front of the net. He’s a sucker for tipping pucks on net, using his high-end hand-eye coordination to generate solid chances from seemingly innocuous point shots.
From a defensive perspective, Brown makes his money through his positioning and his ability to support the breakout with his legs. While he doesn’t touch the puck in the d-zone all that much, he takes full advantage of turnovers created by both himself and teammates. When he generates the turnover, he’s a near-guaranteed zone exit, and when his teammates are the ones regaining puck possession, Brown is hyperactive in streaking up the ice, looking to turn any and all defensive recoveries into a breakaway or odd-man opportunity.
Brown is also a penalty-killing specialist, using his solid positioning and penchant for breakaways to his advantage when playing a man down. With the Devils losing Erik Haula, who was magnificent on the PK, Brown comes as an effective replacement, using his speed to both get pucks out of the zone and turn those chances into opportunities the other way.
I like the player here a lot and think he’s going to be a valuable addition to the Devils’ bottom six. They desperately needed a player of his archetype — a speedy, bottom-six rush facilitator who can play on the first penalty kill unit. The term, in my opinion, is just fine, even when considering he’s already 31 years old. The AAV, though, is just a smidgen rich for my taste, especially with some exceptional fourth liners getting
Evgenii Dadonov: 1 Year, $1 Million AAV: A+
A one-year, team-friendly deal for a veteran scoring winger who just logged a 20-20 season is another excellent signing by the Devils. Dadonov, who is entering his age-37 season, is still quite fast and fits New Jersey’s need of a middle-six goal scorer quite well.
There’s a ton to like about Dadonov’s offensive game, even at his age. In particular, his explosiveness is a strength, finishing the season in the 86th percentile for speed bursts of 20+ mph. He uses this to his advantage in transition, joining that and his underrated puckhandling ability to dance around defenders through the neutral zone. Past that, Dadonov has a high hockey sense in this facet of his game, positioning himself savvily as a passing option through center ice, changing his approach based on his linemates.
Beyond just his skating, Dadonov is a strong playmaker and possesses a shot that you’d expect from a five-time 20-plus goal-scorer. He does most of his offensive damage off the rush, as you’d expect from a player with his legs. In particular, though he excels as a passer, threading saucer passes over diving players’ bodies and through defenders’ legs while operating in odd-man capacities. That isn’t to say he doesn’t finish off the rush — he does — but he is better as the facilitator.
In a cyclical setting, though he isn’t as much of a threat as off the rush, Dadonov still positions himself smartly for high-danger shooting attempts and still throws a ton of passes into high-danger areas of the ice.
He’s a clinical finisher, as I alluded to earlier. Outside of his outlier 2022-23 season, Dadonov finished each and every one of his campaigns having scored more goals than expected. In 2024-25, he scored those 20 goals on 17.62 individual expected goals (ixG), and has similar rates throughout his career.
Defensively, Dadonov’s microstatistics are stronger than what his macro-impacts would imply. The bulk of his successes on that level stem from his innate ability to exit the zone with possession once he gains the puck back from the opposition, scarcely failing to get the puck out of the zone once it touches his stick. To me, the dichotomy between his underlying numbers on a macro and micro scale tell me that his positioning is a weak point, and the eye test confirms that hypothesis. Dadonov is both too passive at times and can overcommit, either leaving too much space for his man or leaving too much space for his man to make a pass to the interior of the ice. I’m less concerned about this in Sheldon Keefe’s system, though, as the team as a whole takes a safer approach — Dadonov is smart enough to adapt quickly, and I honestly believe his defensive impacts will drastically improve in 2025-26, especially if he continues to do the little things the right way.
There was no better player signed to a contract worth $1 million yesterday, nor particularly close. It was an incredibly low-risk, medium-high-reward play from the Devils’ front office. At worst, Dadonov somehow falls off a cliff play-wise, and he’s both only getting paid $1 million and he’ll be off the books next season. It was exactly the type of move Fitzgerald needed to make.
Depth Signings: B
The Devils also signed three depth defensemen to league-minimum deals. Dennis Cholowski was re-signed to a one-year, one-way contract with an AAV of $775,000. On top of that, they signed defenseman Calen Addison to a one-year, two-way deal worth $775,000 and forward Angus Crookshank to a two-year deal worth $775,000 annually.
Cholowski wasn’t very good for the Devils after he was acquired by the team at the 2024 Trade Deadline, but he should provide Utica with some solid support on the blueline. In a pinch, he’s a sufficient NHL call-up (though not a very good one), too, and has prior history as a decent puck-moving defenseman for the Islanders. For a two-way, league-minimum contract, it’s hard to complain.
Addison is an interesting one to me, though. He didn’t see NHL time in 2024-25, instead logging 36 points across 62 AHL games between the Springfield Thunderbirds and Henderson Silver Knights. He wasn’t particularly great the season prior with the San Jose Sharks (who was, though?), but had a strong 2022-23 season with the Minnesota Wild in his age-22 campaign. Addison genuinely looked the part of a middle-pairing, puck-moving power-play quarterback at the NHL level, scoring 29 points in 62 games and providing the Wild with these impacts:
Not a bad gamble to make from the Devils’ front office — it’s a low-risk, decent-reward play.
Finally, there’s Crookshank, who only has 21 NHL games under his belt. The former fifth-round selection has been a superb AHL player, though, scoring no fewer than 40 points in each of the last three seasons. Notably, Crookshank’s contract is structured so that the first year is a two-way deal and the second year is a one-way contract. Perhaps there is something to that, but I would still guess that he spends the entire duration of the two seasons in Utica as a beacon for developing other prospects in the Devils’ system.
Notable Misses
The Devils’ strategy of ignoring the big-ticket UFAs in favor of signing smaller, tidy deals for depth players was a smart one — overpaying for bigger fish is generally the way to get yourself into unwanted cap situations, and I think Fitzgerald & Co. learned that lesson with the Ondrej Palat and Brenden Dillon deals.
With that in mind, there were a couple of depth players who went to different teams that I’d have had a strong interest in.
The Boston Bruins claimed Mikey Eyssimont, one of my favorite fourth-line UFA candidates, for two years at $1.45 million AAV. Jonathan Drouin, signed for two years at $4 million AAV, is now headed to the New York Islanders — he could have been a decent middle-six guy at that price. The St. Louis Blues handed Nick Bjugstad, who could have been a decent bargain-bin third-line center, $1.75 million AAV for two years. Finally, there’s Cole Koepke, another one of my fourth-line targets, who signed with the Winnipeg Jets for one year and $1 million.
If I were a betting man, I’d assume that the Devils have a couple of things on the to-do list, trade-wise. As is, this is their current roster:
Of note here,
This does not include the impending Luke Hughes & Cody Glass extensions, and with those two signed (Glass at $2.5 and Luke at $7, theoretically), the Devils would be nearly $2 million over the cap.
I highly doubt New Jersey wants to run it back with Ondrej Palat on the team or with Dawson Mercer as the third-line center. We all bore witness to the disaster that was Palat last season, dragging down legitimately every one of his linemates with him during the regular season, and Mercer is much better suited on the wing than down the middle.
In the coming days, I would not be surprised in the slightest if there were a significant move or three — something is brewing.
Overall, I’d give the Devils’ first day of free agency an A-.