On Johnsson trade rumors, Smith's struggles, and Hughes being Hughes

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A few New Jersey Devils thoughts on this off-day:

Are Mangos out of season?

They just might be; at least in New Jersey. In the latest edition of Insider Trading, TSN’s Darren Dreger suggested Andreas Johnsson is a player of interest to the Arizona Coyotes.

Why might a team in a full fledged rebuild be targeting a 27-year-old middle-6 winger who counts for nearly $3.5 million against the cap?

The Devil is in the details. Johnsson’s cap hit for next season is $3.4M but his base salary is only $750K. There is a signing bonus as well but, even then, Arizona would only be spending ~$2.5M to chew up all that cap space.

Rostering players like Johnsson is a good way for the Coyotes to field a team over the floor while not spending real dollars.

If they want to bottom out another year – and take a run at a franchise changer like Connor Bedard – doing so while spending as little money as possible is ideal. Johnsson would help the Coyotes with that.

Now, that’s not to say he is a useless player. Sure, he has cooled following a strong start to the season. He is still producing at a 42 point pace over 82 games.

That’s not nothing, especially considering Johnsson has spent a large chunk of recent months playing inside the bottom-6.

That coincides with a dip in production, of course, but you’re not getting 40+ points from a 3rd liner; not unless you’re intentionally plopping a top-6er like Kevin Fiala on L3 to balance the lineup.

Johnsson may not be a $3.4M player but he’s not far off.

Why might the Devils part with Johnsson? Simply put, they can better reallocate the money he’s making.

Hughes’ raise kicks in next season. Jesper Bratt is going to get a big raise for next season. And, of course, the Devils want to make upgrades to better support the core in place.

They do have plenty of money coming off the books (like P.K. Subban’s) but it goes quick. The Devils will want to have as much flexibility as possible, especially if they plan to hunt a big fish.

Johnsson is not a top-6 option on this version of the Devils. That leaves little reason to believe he will be when they add another piece to the mix, let alone promote top prospects (i.e. Alex Holtz) from within.

If the Devils can get anything of worth for a slightly overpaid (cap wise) middle-6 winger, that’s probably the best path to take.