The Devils Should Consider Trading Dougie Hamilton This Summer

The New Jersey Devils have a logjam at RHD and a salary cap conundrum with Hamilton taking up $9M AAV. Could the Devils solve two issues at once by moving Hamilton, or do they still need what he brings to the table offensively?

The New Jersey Devils will need to get creative this summer in order to create some cap space to fill the needs up front that the team will have entering the 2025-26 season.

There have already been several suggestions on that front in regards to what the Devils should do, from cutting the dead weight on the roster to maybe bridging Luke Hughes to trading Dawson Mercer, although Chris wrote this past weekend why that last one might not be the best idea.

One suggestion that hasn’t had a deep dive yet is in regards to their free agency prize of the 2021 offseason….Dougie Hamilton.

Hamilton just completed the fourth season of the seven-year, $9M AAV deal that he signed that summer. And while he’s mostly been as advertised as an offense-first, right-handed defenseman, it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that the Devils might have already gotten the best years Hamilton has to offer out of that deal. Hamilton turns 32 years old next week and while that isn’t ancient in terms of being a quality NHL player, Hamilton is a one-dimensional type of player who needs his offense to outweigh his defensive deficiencies to be a net positive player.

That $9M AAV is a big number and considering the Devils have depth at RHD, its reasonable to at least ask the question whether or not the Devils should consider trading Hamilton to reallocate his money elsewhere. And while I don’t expect the Devils to pull the trigger on a Hamilton deal, I think its something that they should at least consider as they head into the offseason.

How the Moves the Devils Have Already Made Led Us To This Point

The Devils have revamped the right side of their defense since Dougie Hamilton signed with the team as a free agent prior to the 2021-22 season.

PK Subban retired after that season. Damon Severson was signed and traded away to the Columbus Blue Jackets the following year. John Marino has come and gone via trade. The Devils have drafted Simon Nemec and Seamus Casey since then, and signed Brett Pesce as a free agent prior to last season.

The Devils also traded for Johnathan Kovacevic prior to last season. Kovacevic was one of the pleasant surprises of the first half of the season, and Tom Fitzgerald rewarded him with a five-year, $4M AAV contract right around the trade deadline. With both Kovacevic and Pesce locked in through 2030 and Hamilton under contract for a few more years, the prevailing thought once Kovacevic signed was that this might have been a precursor to a trade involving Simon Nemec and/or Seamus Casey at the deadline to add some pieces upfront.

That deal or deals, if they ever existed, never came to fruition.

Now, that’s not to say that Nemec and/or Casey are safe going forward. Those players are easier to move than Hamilton, and its certainly possible that they could be featured pieces in a trade or trades that may be coming down in the next few weeks once the business season opens up around the league.

But part of me does wonder if the promise that Nemec showed in the postseason would give Fitzgerald second thoughts about moving a former #2 overall pick who is entering his age 21 season. Part of me wonders if Hamilton missing most of the end of the regular season due to yet another injury is causing Fitzgerald to rethink things.

Part of me also wonders with the aforementioned tightening cap sheet if the Devils view Hamilton’s $9M AAV as a must-have going forward. Especially knowing they only have $12M in space to work with at the moment and knowing Luke Hughes will command a healthy portion of that.

Consider a recent interview that Fitzgerald did with Mike Morreale of NHL.com where they talked about several offseason topics. As NJMetal15 brought up in the comments section of the DitD post the other day, there were at least three instances of Fitzgerald alluding to the lack of cap space the Devils have. One doesn’t need to dig too deep to see that Fitzgerald is aware of the situation the Devils are in.

Obviously, Fitzgerald is a big part of the reason why the Devils don’t have a ton of cap space to begin with. He didn’t HAVE to sign Ondrej Palat for $6M AAV through 2027, and the timing of the Kovacevic deal continues to be a head-scratcher. Knowing what we know now about Kovacevic suffering an injury that will impact his start to next season, its reasonable to say that there’s no way a 5x$4M contract would’ve been there for Kovacevic this summer. But this is the bed Fitzgerald made, and in fairness to Fitzgerald, its not like he has a crystal ball where he can predict these things. Hindsight, as always, is 20/20.

Kovacevic won’t be out of the lineup forever, Nemec still has his whole career in front of him, and Pesce isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Hamilton is the elder statesman of the group and the one who has been here the longest. I’m not saying the Devils will definitely move on from Hamilton, but with the recent long-term commitments to Pesce and Kovacevic and Nemec showing some promise the last time(s) the Devils played a game, its at least reasonable to ask whether or not the Devils might consider a change.

Is Hamilton Still a Top Pairing RHD worth $9M AAV?

Hamilton is still one of the better offensive defensemen in the NHL, and that should not be understated. After all, one of the Devils biggest issues last season was secondary scoring. Hamilton showed he can still be a reliable source of offense.

Let’s consider his player card from The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn for a moment.

Hamilton might be slightly overpaid at this point of his career, but its not by an egregious amount when considering what he brings to the table offensively. He still sees plenty of time on the power play for the Devils…..only Jack Hughes got more ice time per game with the man advantage last season, and 37.5% of Hamilton’s points from last season came on the power play. Considering the Devils had one of the best power plays in the league last season, how vital the power play was to the team’s success, and the Devils need for more offense in general, that does matter. The one “yeah, but” with Hamilton offensively is that he had his second-worst season from a shooting percentage perspective, converting at a 4.8% rate. Only his first season in NJ was worse.

Hamilton is still attempting 6.6 shots per game, which isn’t too far off from career best season two years ago when he was at 6.9 shot attempts per game. But fewer of those shots are actually hitting the net. He averaged 2.9 shots per game this past season, down from 3.35 two seasons ago. According to NHL Edge, his shot speed is also down a smidge from 157.25 kph two years ago to 155.87 kph.

I don’t know how much of this is just year-to-year variance, how much of this is a slight decline as he gets older, or how much of this can be chalked up to luck. There is some amount of luck involved when it comes to hitting the net and whether or not the opposition is getting into lanes and blocking shots. But I think there’s enough there under the hood to suggest there hasn’t been a major offensive drop off yet in his early 30s, and I think when you look at the defensemen on the Devils who are capable of moving the puck, that list gets awfully short once you get past Hamilton and Luke Hughes. Maybe Simon Nemec will get to that point eventually, but he’s not quite there yet. Same goes for Seamus Casey if and when he carves out a full-time NHL gig. I would not consider Pesce, Dillon, Siegenthaler, or Kovacevic to be puck-moving defensemen.

Hamilton has value….but does it still outweigh his decline as a defensive defenseman?

Hamilton saw a pretty sharp decline defensively almost immediately upon joining the Devils, and a big part of that can be credited to him leaving Carolina’s system. Getting away from a pairing with arguably the best defensive defenseman in the league in Jaccob Slavin to head to a Devils system that wasn’t all that great defensively under the previous coaching staff will have an impact.

Maybe those defensive warts can be covered up a little bit by pairing him with a good defensive defenseman like Jonas Siegenthaler. It’s a pairing that has certainly had a lot of success in the past. But Hamilton is also what he is at this stage of his career. He’s a big body who isn’t overly physical in a league where that’s becoming more en vouge the more Florida continues to win playing that way. He’s not a great skater despite what his NHL Edge skating stats say. If Hamilton gets caught flat-footed, his zero-to-max speed acceleration is slower than Bowser in the original Super Mario Kart. The lack of foot speed has gotten to a point where he’s almost a liability if he’s playing at the point on the power play, because if he fumbles a pass, someone intercepts it, or he makes a bad pinch, he can’t recover and ts a short-handed scoring chance the other way. The Jordan Martinook short-handed goal in Game 2 vs. Carolina is a good example of that. The lack of foot speed has at least gotten to the point where I’d rather have Luke Hughes on PP1 since he can actually skate, and I value that more than Hamilton’s shot at this point.

I do think the positives still outweigh the negatives, even if its only slightly. But as we’re entering the final three seasons of Hamilton’s deal, I think its reasonable to question whether or not that will continue to be the case. Some decline overall is to be expected, and while it can be hidden to an extent with a reduction in ice time and responsibilities as he gets older, flawed players eventually have those flaws exposed at some point.

The old Bill Belichick adage is that it’s better to let a player go a year too early than a year too late. And while that’s far easier to do in the NFL where players don’t have guaranteed contracts, it might apply in a situation like this.

The Devils Can Build a Deeper Lineup By Reinvesting Hamilton’s $9M AAV

Which Devils lineup is deeper?

One that still has Hamilton and with Simon Nemec on the bench? Or one that has Hamilton playing elsewhere, Nemec in the Devils lineup, and, say, Mason Marchment and Jean-Gabriel Pageau filling the Devils holes in the Top Six and 3C, respectively?

Or how about one with JJ Peterka or Jason Robertson, along with a UFA signing in Nick Bjugstad, instead of Hamilton and Haula?

I’m not saying that those higher end names like Peterka or Robertson would be easy to acquire, nor am I saying that Hamilton would necessarily wind up in Buffalo or Dallas respectively. But if you find a willing partner to take on the remaining three years of Hamilton’s deal, it gives you more flexibility to be in the mix for those types of players.

More importantly, finding a taker for Hamilton creates additional flexibility in future years beyond 2025-26. Cap space shouldn’t be as much of an issue for the Devils in the next couple seasons as the cap is expected to continue increasing and several of the Devils short-term deals will expire by the end of the 2026-27 season.

Final Thoughts

I think the most likely outcome for the Devils would be the one where Dougie Hamilton is on the Opening Night roster in 2025.

While I do think the Devils have a little bit of a conundrum when it comes to their cap situation, I think they’ll have an easier time trading Erik Haula if they need to to free up his money. I also think with one fewer year on his deal and $3M AAV less on his deal than Hamilton, they’d have an easier time moving Ondrej Palat if that is what they decide to do.

Hamilton has been a long-time polarizing player, and while I think some of the knocks on him such as his fondness for museums are a bit ridiculous, I do think that sometimes, perception can be reality. And fairly or unfairly, I do look at a player where Boston and Calgary were ok trading him after a few years. I look at a Carolina team that was ok with letting him hit UFA and didn’t exactly make the strongest push to keep him. And while I get that the Devils were in an advantageous position to swoop in and sign Hamilton when they did, it wasn’t exactly a secret that Hamilton was hitting UFA when he did. There wasn’t exactly a litany of teams willing to move heaven and earth to make the space to sign a top pairing RHD who can quarterback a power play. Especially one that hit the open market and only cost money to sign.

I’m not saying the Devils made a mistake signing Hamilton, as landing him helped re-establish New Jersey as a franchise that can be a destination for players and validated what the Devils had built to that point in 2021. As far as I know behind the scenes, Hamilton has embraced being a Devil, being in New Jersey, and has gone above and beyond when it comes to helping the team establish a brand on social media. He’s been a good player that has been as advertised offensively. But I think when you compare him to a guy like Palat who might also be a salary cap casualty this summer, Palat is viewed more as a guy that “you can win with” because of the intangibles and leadership and “rings in the room” and all of the little things that caused the Devils to sign him in the first place. I’m not disputing what JP Gambatese suggested last week when he said the Devils would have no issue moving off of Palat and his full salary, but for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, I could see there being a few teams that might think they’re an Ondrej Palat away from winning. I don’t know that Hamilton is necessarily viewed in that same light by the other 31 teams.

But let’s put that aside for a minute and just look at the numbers for Hamilton. Three more years. $9M AAV. A 10-team trade list starting July 1. After Hamilton is paid his $10.5M bonus on July 1st, there will only be $14.65M remaining due in actual dollars over the next three seasons. Some might argue that with that bonus paid, that would make Hamilton more attractive to potential salary cap floor teams that aren’t looking to spend a ton of money. I would argue that I don’t think David Blitzer and Josh Harris are in the business of writing someone a $10.5M check to do nothing for them this upcoming season. Either way, I think its too many years and too big a cap hit to move. Especially in an offseason where an even greater extreme of an offense-first, RHD, PP1 QB defenseman might be available via trade in Erik Karlsson. The Penguins might have an easier time moving Karlsson with one fewer year, especially if they’re willing to retain salary. Given where they are in their timeline, there’s no reason they shouldn’t retain, and while the Devils might have to ultimately retain salary to move Hamilton at some point, that should be viewed as a last resort.

Hamilton will be difficult to move, and this is considering whether or not the Devils want to move him in the first place. It would presumably require the Devils having the confidence internally to turn to Simon Nemec and/or Seamus Casey (or perhaps both as long as Kovacevic is out) as their RHD at the NHL level. The team didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in either one for most of last season, hence, Dennis Cholowski getting run late in the season. But Nemec showed enough in the playoffs to give you a reason to hold on to him, and Casey should be better in his second season as a professional. Between that and their long-term commitments to Kovacevic and Pesce, maybe that’s enough to give them a reason to consider moving Hamilton.

Should the Devils consider moving Hamilton though? Yeah, I think its something they should at least be thinking about internally. I think all options should be on the table and with a soon-to-be declining player in his 30s taking up such a big chunk of the salary cap, that money could probably be better used elsewhere.

Will they move him though? I think its complicated for a variety of reasons, so I’d lean towards “probably not” and lean towards him being in New Jersey for at least one more season, at which point we can revisit this discussion next summer.