After several weeks of waiting, the New Jersey Devils have finally signed their top young defenseman to an extension. While we had all hoped it would be worked out during the month of July, silence spiraled into rumors, leading to a few discussions on the matter over the last couple weeks. Recently, Jackson gave the case for a bridge deal, but Pierre LeBrun reported on Insider Trading a couple weeks ago that the Devils and Luke Hughes seemed to be working towards a long-term extension. This was later backed up by Elliote Friedman, who repeatedly said that Hughes was fixated on a long-term deal. This was welcome news for Devils fans, who had been subjected to rumors about his contract, ranging from talk of a five-year deal to match him up with Jack’s contract (which had cold water poured on by Jack himself) to Paul Bissonnette’s later mention of a mystery Hughes family member wanting the brothers on the New York Rangers. But, as Jack said,
[Luke] enjoys playing in New Jersey…I’m giving really political answers, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Even more so than Matthew [Tkachuk], like, I’m on Luke’s team. So, I want to see it get done. But, yeah, obviously, there’s a lot of pieces in play. I know he wants to stay in New Jersey.
Unsurprisingly, most of the talk about the Luke Hughes contract situation has been based off of pure rumor and conjecture. Without any solid reports to work from, people have taken plenty of shots in the dark. Tom Fitzgerald bears some blame for this after calling Luke’s contract his biggest priority in his free agency media availability. Had he worked the contract out with more haste, or simply said that the two sides would work on it over the summer, the length of negotiations might not have roused so much suspicion. Still, the news over the last week or so was all that the two camps were looking at a long-term extension, meaning seven or eight years.
Flash forward to today, and Luke has signed a 7-year, $63 million contract. This move will likely mean that Johnny Kovacevic will soon be on long-term injured reserve, as the Devils will be over the cap ceiling as a result of this contract. With this deal, Hughes is also eligible to play in the final two preseason games before the regular season commences on October 9. After missing nearly two weeks of training camp, Hughes still gets a little bit of time to get up to speed with his teammates and coaches, and I look forward to seeing him on the ice.
Please note that this article will be updated with more of a reaction to this contract. For now, please feel free to discuss the deal with your fellow Devils fans. And let us all be glad that this is starting to be put behind us.
The Cap Picture
With today’s deal, the Devils are listed with -$3.983 million in cap space on PuckPedia. In addition to the injured Johnny Kovacevic, Marc McLaughlin is currently listed as carrying a $190,000 cap penalty for being on Season Opening Injured Reserve. Additionally, the roster is listed with three extras:
- Kurtis MacDermid with a cap hit of $1.15 million
- Seamus Casey with a cap hit of $950,000
- Thomas Bordeleau with a cap hit of $775,000
With Hughes on the roster, it is highly unlikely that Seamus Casey would receive much ice time if he stayed with the Devils. By sending Casey to play 23 minutes a night in Utica, the Devils could call up Colton White, Dennis Cholowski, or Calen Addison to save $175,000 against the cap. As for Bordeleau, the Devils may keep him on the roster, but they would not be able to generate any savings by replacing him with another player. For example, if Luke Glendening signed a league minimum contract with the team, there would be no change to the cap hit on that roster spot.
The bigger savings could come from Kurtis MacDermid, who has the maximum cap hit that can be buried in the AHL at $1.15 million. If, say, the Devils wanted to keep Bordeleau or Angus Crookshank, or if they signed Kevin Rooney to a contract, then the Devils would save $375,000 by having them on the roster over MacDermid. Lesser savings could come from Juho Lammikko’s contract, as his lineup spot would be in question if Glendening were signed. Lammikko makes slightly above league minimum at $800,000. However, if he were sent down, there is no guarantee he would report to Utica. On a one-way contract and a recent history of play in the Swiss National League, a cut from the NHL roster could mean a return to Europe for Lammikko. However, since the Devils would only save $25,000 against the cap by replacing Lammikko with a player on league minimum salary, there is not much to be gained there.
Per league LTIR rules, though, the Devils should remain as highly over the cap as they possibly can to maximize the LTIR pool. After Kovacevic goes on LTIR, they can play with making room under the LTIR exception cap for further acquisitions. PuckPedia has noted on their LTIR page:
If a team cannot be cap compliant on opening day without using LTIR, the LTIR Pool is the amount the team exceeds the Cap. For example, if a team is $3M over the Cap and places a player on LTIR with a $4M Cap Hit for the opening roster submission, the LTIR Pool is the $3M that the team exceeded the cap
On the Devils’ specific situation, PuckPedia wrote on Twitter:
The Devils will be able to play with their present roster for the first few months of the season. The real question is whether they will be able to go the entire season without a trade. Whether they acquire an LTIR-retired player, such as Carey Price, or if they trade a player away to make room under the cap, they will need to do something if Johnny Kovacevic returns without another player on the team getting hurt. But that is a problem for later.
Note: This article was updated at 2:35 PM with the above section. It will be updated further.