The New Jersey Devils have already spent this offseason reshaping the roster, and the work has come with a clear theme: flexibility. Sunny Mehta has taken over as the top decision-maker, replacing Tom Fitzgerald, and the changes have been immediate.
Meghan Duggan, Chuck Fletcher, Jeremy Colliton, Dave Rogalski, and Dan MacKinnon are all out of the front office and coaching mix, while Sheldon Keefe remains in place. Sergei Brylin is also gone after taking a head coaching job in the KHL.
Mehta has also started adjusting the roster itself. He sent Jacob Markstrom to the Florida Panthers for Evan Rodrigues and Jesper Boqvist, a move that cleaned up the Markstrom extension situation Fitzgerald left behind and added depth to the bottom six.
He also moved Simon Nemec to ease the logjam on defense, landing a strong package of draft picks in return. That deal carried more risk than the Markstrom trade, but the Devils were not in position to pay what the Calgary Flames ended up coughing up.
Up front, the only notable addition so far has been Anthony Mantha on a two-year deal. It’s a modest upgrade, and not everyone will see it as enough. With Jason Robertson no longer available, Dylan Larkin is the most valuable trade target left for New Jersey - but he is not on the trade list, which pushes the Devils toward thinner options.
That leaves the free-agent market, where a few names still stand out. Vladimir Tarasenko is still out there after a 20-goal season, though the Devils already took a swing at a similar bet with Evgenii Dadonov last season. That one went sideways fast when he got hurt right away and then did nothing but eat up cap space.
Then there’s Patrik Laine, which is the most interesting name of the bunch. Laine has been a headache in different ways for both the Columbus Blue Jackets and Montreal Canadiens, and last season mostly vanished because of injury. He reportedly said he was healthy for the final few months of the year.
The bigger issue is that Laine is nowhere near the player he was once projected to become. At one point, he looked like a future elite scorer. Now he can’t find a team, and the market seems to have cooled to the point where he may only be getting tryout offers after apparently hoping for a multi-year deal that never came.
For the Devils, the only sensible path would be a low-risk, bonus-heavy contract. Because Laine missed so much time over the last two seasons, Mehta could offer him the minimum with incentives attached.
But there’s a catch: Laine has to show he still has the one trait that made him dangerous in the first place. If he can still fire the puck the way he used to, then he’s worth a look. If not, the hassle isn’t worth it.
NHL Edge stats show that his top shot has dropped nearly 10 MPH. In 2023-24, his hardest shot reached 98.37 MPH. Last season, though it came in just five games, his top mark was 87.83 MPH.
That matters because if the shot is gone, so is the edge that made Laine special. He’s not fast enough to survive on speed, he doesn’t bring much physical bite, and nobody is confusing him for a tough player. Without that elite release, he’s just another body.
The good news for New Jersey is that this is easy to sort out. Put him through a workout.
If the shot is still there after all the injuries, then the Devils can hand him a bonus-laden deal and move on. If it isn’t, they can keep looking.
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