That team is legit.

There's no need to do that trade with Tampa.

Butcher just sign a 3 years 11.19M$ average 3.73M$

It depends.

NJ would have great replacement for Simmonds if they decided to trade him.

Also there's not a real slot for Vatanen in NJ. But there's a slot for good winger.

Oh

Do you really need the picks to balance out Zacha and JP? I don't think you do. Both are in similar spots, JP a year younger. It's a classic NJ/EDM one for one deal. Those always work out great for EDM right..... right?

Zacha is an established middle-6 forward. Also he can play C, which is more valuable position.

Same can't be said about Puljujärvi.

I agree, from an Oilers perspective. The Oilers would covet a young 3rd liner who can play wing and center right now. I could see this happening.

I get why edmonton would be interested, but Zacha has topped out at 25 points. Is that really middle six centre production? Does he even play much centre? For the record, JP did play centre in Finland, but he is a winger

Also isn't that 3rd in 2020 the conditional in the neal trade?

In NJ Zacha wasn't middle-6 C since they had three better Cs in Hischier, Johansson and Zajac. Now they have Hughes, so Zacha can be traded. But in EDM he has the 3C slot almost made for him.

And yes the pick is conditional, I forgot about it. Drop that and NJs 3rd rounders if necessary.

I don't think NJD would move Zacha to acquire Puljujarvi (with swap of mid-round picks). They'd pass.

Yeah, so probably this trade could be Pulju and the 2021 3rd for Zacha and a 6th or something. Similar value.

Zacha last season pro-rates to 34 points on an 82 game schedule (he played only 61 games). At 22, you can't declare he is capped out. It wouldn't take much improvement for Zacha to be a reliable 40 point 3C. Pulju needs a whole lot of improvement to solidify as a winger capable of those numbers. Think about it, would you be satisfied with Pulju if he played next year and had 25 points in 61 games? I would feel like that would be a step forward for him? I would be. But we don't know that Pulju will even do that.

The devils look like major losers in that Zacha trade. The guy is a full time NHL player by the time he turned 22 and is a C. Poolparty is a winger that just came off of a double hip surgery and cant stay in the lineup on an Oilers team that has some of the worst depth and scoring woes in the league.