New Jersey Devils to sign Brett Pesce

The defensive specialist will command $5.5 million per on a six-year deal.

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The New Jersey Devils – as expected – have promptly replaced John Marino on the opening day of free agency, signing right-handed defensive specialist Brett Pesce to a long-term contract.

Pesce will put pen to paper on a six-year deal carrying an annual average value of $5.5 million.

Pesce is a terrific defender with a strong track record of not only holding his own – but excelling – while logging very difficult minutes.

He played ~500 five-on-five minutes against top-tier competition in each of the past three years and posted positive goal differentials across the board.

The rates at which elite opponents scored goals during Pesce’s minutes (1.8 per 60, 1.6 per 60, and 1.6 per 60) were remarkably low. Even more so when you consider the Hurricanes had mid-tier goaltending in that span; it’s not like he was playing in front of Vezina winners.

Pesce is also a high-end penalty killer. Among 117 defenders to log 300+ total minutes on the PK over the past three years, Pesce ranked 2nd in goals against/60 and 8th in expected goals against/60.

It doesn’t much matter how dominant the Hurricanes were in shorthanded situations during that span. Those metrics are impressive independent of any team factors.

Considering the Devils moved on from Damon Severson and Ryan Graves after 2022-23, as well as John Marino, Kevin Bahl, and Brendan Smith this summer (for all his faults, he’s fantastic on the PK), there was an extremely pressing need to add quality penalty killing acumen on the backend. Pesce certainly fits the bill (so does Jonathan Kovacevic, who I’ll be writing about in the days to come).