The New Jersey Devils may not find a franchise-changing name sitting in free agency, but there are still veterans out there who could give this roster a real jolt. With the 2026 class looking much thinner than it did a year ago, the big-ticket stars have mostly stayed put. Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Kirill Kaprizov all re-signed, and even Alex Tuch wound up in a sign-and-trade with division rival Washington.
That leaves Devils general manager Sunny Mehta with a narrower path to improvement. If the trade market doesn’t deliver a major swing, there are still a few experienced scorers who could help right away. New Jersey needs veteran scoring and leadership, and it needs both without overreaching for players who will cost more than they’re worth.
Anthony Mantha doesn’t fit that bill, despite what a career year might do to his market. Alexander Ovechkin doesn’t either.
He is either going to retire or stay with the Capitals. The more realistic targets are Vladimir Tarasenko, Mats Zuccarello and Patrick Kane.
Tarasenko is the kind of name Devils fans have seen connected to the team for years. Back when Tom Fitzgerald was running the front office, he seemed to pop up in New Jersey rumors every offseason.
The 34-year-old winger has bounced around since leaving St. Louis, with five different teams on his résumé, and he was part of the 2022-23 Rangers team the Devils beat in seven games.
He still knows how to score. Tarasenko had 23 goals and 47 points last season with Minnesota, which would have ranked fourth on the Devils behind Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier. That kind of depth scoring has been missing in New Jersey for a while, and Tarasenko would help there immediately.
Availability matters too, and Tarasenko has usually given it to teams. He has only missed the 70-game mark a handful of times in his 14-year career, and the last time came during the season he split between the Blues and Rangers, when he played 69 games. For a Devils team that has dealt with the frustrating mix of players who can stay on the ice but not produce, and players who can produce but can’t stay on the ice, that matters.
Zuccarello is another Minnesota name worth watching, and Devils fans know him well from his long run with the Rangers. He spent eight and a half seasons in New York before moving to Minnesota, where he has quietly remained one of the league’s more productive forwards.
He has gone over 50 points in each of the last four seasons with the Wild, including a 79-point year in 2021-22. At 38, he would become the oldest Devil, but he is still generating offense at a level that would fit right into New Jersey’s top six. His 54 points last season would have trailed only Hughes, Bratt and Hischier.
The obvious concern is size. That has followed Zuccarello throughout his career, and it would not exactly erase the usual criticism that the Devils are a little undersized themselves. But when a player keeps producing like this, teams usually stop worrying about the measurements.
Zuccarello also brings playoff value. He posted nine points in eight games this past offseason for Minnesota, even while missing three of them.
He has been frustrated by the lack of contract talks with the Wild, and that makes an open-market move feel likely. New Jersey could offer him a chance to keep producing at a high level for a few more years.
Kane rounds out the group, and the overlap is hard to miss: all three of these targets are former Rangers. At 37, Kane is coming off a 50-point season in Detroit, a reminder that he can still drive offense even in his late 30s. That total would have put him behind only Hughes, Bratt and Hischier on the Devils last season.
Detroit has just gone through another disappointing year, and Kane has not been back to the playoffs since the 2022-23 run with the Rangers. New Jersey didn’t reach the postseason last season either, but over the past two years the Devils have been there more often than the Red Wings.
There is also an obvious pitch New Jersey can make: Jack Hughes. Hughes has said Kane was his childhood hero, and that connection could matter.
A Bratt-Hughes-Kane line would be small, but it would be dangerous offensively. Kane has had injury issues at times, but when he is healthy, he still scores.
The Devils don’t need a blockbuster from free agency to improve. Any one of these three veterans would give them another scoring option in the top six, and that alone would make the roster better than it is right now.
In Other News...
Wild Just Dropped An Unexpected Winger Into Devils' Conversation
The Devils have already spent part of the offseason sorting their own restricted free-agent business, choosing not to tender qualifying offers to Paul Cotter, Calen Addison, Tyler Brennan and Dylan Wendt while keeping control of names such as Arseny Gritsyuk and Nico Daws. Those roster decisions helped clarify where New Jersey stands heading into the next phase of the summer, with the club still balancing depth moves against the need to preserve flexibility for bigger additions.
Now another name has entered the broader conversation, and it is one that should register for a Devils team still looking at ways to add scoring help without overcommitting. Bobby Brink was a surprising omission from Minnesotas qualifying-offer list, and the winger is expected to chase a deal above the amount he would have received, which could make him an interesting fit for teams hunting value on the market. Whether New Jersey treats that as a real opportunity or simply another name to monitor will become clearer as the market opens up. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Just Made A Goalie Move That Changes Everything
The Panthers are moving quickly in goal, and Jacob Markstrom is back in the middle of it. Florida is reportedly close to bringing in the Devils netminder after recently adding Akira Schmid, a sequence that underscores how aggressively the organization is trying to reshape its crease before the market tightens. For New Jersey, the deal would open up another important roster decision, while Florida would be betting on a veteran goalie with a familiar connection to the franchise.
Markstrom also comes with the kind of contract detail that matters in a deal like this, since no salary retention is involved. That makes the move cleaner for Florida on the books and signals just how serious the Panthers are about committing to this reset in net. The ripple effects could still reach well beyond the trade itself, especially with the goaltending market moving fast and other dominoes expected to follow. [Read more 🡒]
Devils Development Camp Is Underway With One Prospect Drawing Attention
Development camp is underway at RWJBarnabas Health Hockey House, and the Devils are using the late-June session to give a fresh group of prospects a first taste of the organizations day-to-day standards. The annual program runs through July 1 at Prudential Center, with on-ice sessions set for June 30 and July 1, and this weeks work has centered on conditioning, skills and tempo drills for draft picks from the 2025 and 2026 classes.
Among the most watched names is first-rounder Alexander Command, who is taking part in off-ice work while the rest of the group goes through the ice portion of camp. The early focus is less about headlines than habits, but the Devils also built in a community stop after the workouts, sending the prospects to a local hospital as part of the clubs outreach around camp. [Read more 🡒]