{"id":352110,"date":"2025-12-16T16:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352110\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T16:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:55:07","slug":"devils-have-discussed-dougie-hamilton-ondrej-palat-in-trade-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/352110\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils Have Discussed Dougie Hamilton, Ondrej Palat In Trade Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning, ESPN\u2019s Kevin Weekes reported<\/a> that the New Jersey Devils have included defenseman Dougie Hamilton<\/a> and forward Ond\u0159ej Pal\u00e1t<\/a> in trade talks. That falls in line with what Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman had said<\/a> regarding the Devils\u2019 pursuit of defenseman Quinn Hughes<\/a> before he was ultimately traded<\/a> to the Minnesota Wild on Friday.<\/p>\n

Friedman didn\u2019t offer any specifics like Weekes, though he had said that he believed New Jersey had a few cap-clearing trades vetoed. That was always going to be the difficulty in moving off of Hamilton or Pal\u00e1t, as both veterans have no-movement clauses and moderate trade protection throughout the rest of their respective contracts.<\/p>\n

The Devils have put themselves into this situation. The Wild only added approximately $1MM in salary by acquiring Hughes, and without knowing New Jersey\u2019s final offer, that would have been nearly impossible for them to absorb.<\/p>\n

Assuming the Devils were willing to trade a player or two off their active roster, and somehow only lost $1MM in salary cap space by acquiring Hughes, they would have had around $200K remaining in flexibility. That would have made it impossible for New Jersey to recall extra depth to fill out their roster, and they would have had to continue the season with an incomplete 23-man roster.<\/p>\n

Still, their pursuit of Hughes suggests that General Manager Tom Fitzgerald<\/a> is eager to make a big move to help the Devils\u2019 roster, even as they continue to stall out in the standings. Again devastated by injuries, New Jersey has fallen out of the playoff picture, going 3-7-0 in their last 10 contests.<\/p>\n

It would make sense that if the Devils are adamant on acquiring a top-level talent, then they will continue trade negotiations regarding Hamilton and Pal\u00e1t. Each player has provided New Jersey with 10 teams they would accept a trade to.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Unfortunately, considering that it\u2019ll be a cap-clearing trade with little returning to New Jersey, their options are limited. Although this list will grow leading up to the deadline, there are only 12 teams that could acquire Pal\u00e1t outright, and only nine for Hamilton.<\/p>\n

Especially for the latter, the Devils will likely need to include a sweetener to the acquiring team. The 34-year-old winger has scored two goals and seven points in 33 games for the Devils this season, making it 28 goals and 66 points in his last 181 games. Factoring in his $6MM cap hit through next season, New Jersey may never be able to move off of his contract.<\/p>\n

Hamilton, by comparison, has more value, but marginally. Hit by the same injury bug that much of the roster has sustained, Hamilton has only played in 57.3% of New Jersey\u2019s games over the last three years. Still, by scoring 18 goals and 64 points over that stretch, he\u2019s nearly matched Pal\u00e1t in offensive production over that stretch in approximately 70 fewer games.<\/p>\n

Given the difficult hurdles to clear, the Devils may end the season with both players on their active roster. Depending on who becomes available closer to the deadline, New Jersey\u2019s front office may feel that simply getting everyone back healthy will be enough pseudo additions to return to competitiveness. There\u2019s definitely an argument for this approach, as the Devils started the year 16-8-1 through their first 25 games with a fairly healthy team.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of John Jones-Imagn Images.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday morning, ESPN\u2019s Kevin Weekes reported that the New Jersey Devils have included defenseman Dougie Hamilton and forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,193468,7519,10232,575,193469,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-352110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-dougie-hamilton","11":"tag-new-jersey-devils","12":"tag-newsstand","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-ondrej-palat","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}