The New Jersey Devils have signed Utah Mammoth center Barrett Hayton to an offer sheet, a one-year, $4.775MM contract per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The team confirmed the deal, which would send a second-round pick to Utah if the Mammoth decides not to match the offer.
In a shrewd move by new General Manager Sunny Mehta, the Devils have put the Mammoth in a particularly tricky spot. Although Utah has more than enough cap space to match the offer from New Jersey, that’s not really where the complications begin. Given the rules around offer sheets, if the Mammoth were to match the offer sheet, they wouldn’t be able to trade Hayton through the 2026-27 season.
Essentially, the Devils have put Utah into a position to accept a second-round pick for Hayton, or sign him to a one-year deal, walking him to unrestricted free agency without the ability to recoup any assets for him.
Given the reality of the situation, it’s more than likely that Mammoth will take the second-round pick for Hayton. Utah added Vincent Trocheck and Anders Lee earlier today, so Hayton likely wouldn’t have had access to much playing time, anyway.
Meanwhile, from New Jersey’s perspective, the offer sheet is somewhat puzzling. The Devils’ forward corps has been ravaged by injuries the past few years, and Hayton would have been one of them. Throughout the past three years, Hayton has missed over a quarter of his possible games due to injuries.
Still, when healthy, he’s been relatively productive, at least as a third-line center. Over the past four seasons, Hayton has scored 52 goals and 124 points in 264 games with a -21 rating, averaging 16:24 of ice time per game. On an 82-game average, that’s 15 goals and 36 points.
Even on some bad Coyotes team, Hayton managed a respectable CorsiFor% at even strength and a solid faceoff rate. Still, if he runs into injury troubles again, and that’s not an unlikely if, Hayton will become just another injured member of New Jersey’s forward corps.