New Jersey Devils buyout Janne Kuokkanen
After a down season, the 24-year-old winger got caught up in a numbers game.
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Janne Kuokkanen is the odd-man out in a numbers game up front.
When writing about the very real possibility of trading Pavel Zacha, I mentioned the New Jersey Devils had an abundance of forwards rostered.
There were 13 with real NHL experience under team control for the 2022-23 season; not to mention, youngsters like Fabian Zetterlund, Alex Holtz, and even Nolan Foote waiting in the wings.
They needed to clear a body or two out just to make room for what they already have in the organization; not to mention any external adds in the coming days and weeks (I think they want to add an impactful winger).
Kuokkanen will be the first player the Devils have cut the cord on in effort to clear out space. Today, the team bought out the 24-year-old winger.
This move will clear $1.625 million against the cap this coming season. They’ll be dinged for $325K in 2023-24.
I like Kuokkanen and believe he’s an NHL player. He is smart, he’s a good passer, and this past season he proved capable of killing penalties effectively.
Among New Jersey’s regular PKers up front, Kuokkanen fared best in terms of limiting shots on goal, expected goals, and actual goals.
With shot suppression, Kuokkanen helped the Devils shave off more than seven attempts per hour. He finished 50/174 in relative CA/60 among forwards, which is well above average.
In saying all that, I understand the move. The Devils need the roster space up front and the additional cap space is certainly a bonus.
I don’t know that they’ll use all of their space this summer but they need to re-up Jesper Bratt, Vitek Vanecek, and there’s urgency inside the organization to add an impact player or two. That costs money; a lot of it.
Why not trade Kuokkanen, you might ask?
The same reason the likes of Sonny Milano, Dylan Strome, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Ryan Donato, and others, aren’t being qualified. Money (well, outside of Chicago; they’re just tanking).
Teams don’t want to risk an arbitration reward forcing them into spending more on these players than they’d like.
If teams are walking away from players like that to give them max flexibility entering free agency, they’re not going to be lining up to pay an asset for a 17-point player making nearly $2 million.
I am confident Kuokkanen will land an NHL job; but for ~$1 million less than he was slated to make in New Jersey.
info via NaturalStatTrick.com, PuckPedia.com, and CapFriendly.com
Why not just waive him at the end of camp? Utica could use him, and he'd be a good call up if injuries hit. Seems a lot more like the Cory buyout and Butcher trade. Devils internal Budget.