New Jersey wasn’t expecting to be so busy this weekend. They thought they could take the weekend off, have a couple drinks, go party and just enjoy their weekend. Drinks were still had but deals were also made that look to greatly benefit the team now, and in the future hopefully.

The deal that was by far the smallest was acquiring Haula from the Rangers. Haula projects to be a fast little forward who can bring some goal scoring punch to their 3rd line. New Jersey also hopes to challenge his DF stat in an attempt to have a guy who can also be responsible in his own end of the ice.

The deal of more relevance made on Saturday was swapping defenceman Jaccob Slavin for veteran forward Logan Couture and Toronto’s 4th round pick in 2022. This deal gives New Jersey either a really good 2C or top line wing to play with captain Patrice Bergeron. While giving up Slavin was tough New Jersey knew that with a lack of overly good forwards on the ufa market they couldn’t solely depend on ufa to fill out the top 6. With Slavin gone their was a glaring hole on New Jersey’s 2nd pairing which they wanted to fill with a player who could play behind Chabot for years to come, the search didn’t last as long as expected.

While the Devils have been(and still are) very vocal with how high they are on Kotka, this deal filled their needs to well to pass up. Hanifin is still pretty young and at worst will be a good #3 d-man for the Devils. Add in that New Jersey got a 3rd round pick and New Jersey liked the return. While sad to see Kotkaniemi go New Jersey still thinks they have a bright future.

With only 3 forward spots left to fill New Jersey is looking to be a major player in ufa. With cap space and cash this team will be hunting down forwards to fill out their top 6. New Jersey doesn’t look nearly as strong as they did last year, but they are hungrier than ever for a title.