3 early Devils trade candidates after missing 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs

For the 11th time in the last 14 years, the New Jersey Devils failed to play beyond the 82nd game of the regular season schedule and won’t play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Despite an initially promising 8–1 start, the Devils struggled to find consistency and were dealt a major setback when star forward Jack Hughes missed multiple weeks with a freak hand injury suffered during a team dinner; just one of several injuries that plagued the Devils’ roster. They ultimately finished with a 42–37–3 record (87 points), missing the playoffs by 10 points.

Naturally, rampant feelings of disappointment are going through the Devils’ dressing room right now, as they explained earlier this week during their locker room clean-out day at Prudential Center in Newark.

“Very disappointing. Not the year that we hoped, or we wanted,” team captain Nico Hischier said via NHL.com. “Unfortunately, it is what it is right now. We have to take the right things out of it and move on.”

“Obviously, not where we want to be,” scoring leader Jack Hughes lamented. “You want to be a team whose season is still going on. It’s a frustrating year, and we’re not where we want to be.”

“It’s hard to process that this is the last day. It’s been hard,” said forward Jesper Bratt. “This year stings the most out of every year where I’ve been in this situation because of the anticipation from before the year, expectations, and the group that we have, I feel like we shouldn’t be in this position, but at the same time, we played ourselves into this position. It’s a hard league, and you get what you deserve in a way. It’s frustrating. It’s not a fun day right now.”

It was even more disappointing for the Devils, considering the kind of talent that they have in the room that has been together now for many years, yet has still struggled to put together consistent performances enough to be looked at as a serious threat by their opposition.

Here’s a look at a few trade candidates that the Devils and new general manager Sunny Mehta, who was hired this week to replace the terminated Tom Fitzgerald, could consider in the upcoming weeks and months now that they’re officially in offseason mode.

Dougie Hamilton has long been rumored to be on the move

One of the Devils players who politely declined all media availability after their season came to a close was veteran defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who has long been rumored to be on the trade block.

During the offseason, there were rumors that Hamilton was approached by the Devils and asked to facilitate a deal despite possessing a 10-team no-trade clause, something that his agent J.P. Barry sounded off on.

“In our view, this decision is all about business rather than his game right now. Singling him out seems very calculated at this stage,” Barry said via Yahoo Sports. “Dougie has a 10-team trade list, and there have been efforts to trade him going back to the draft last year. We have made it clear to the Devils that we will consider teams outside our list and other creative ways to get to a team that is mutually acceptable.”

Among the obstacles in the way of new Devils GM Sunny Mehta is that Hamilton still has two years left on his contract with a considerable salary cap hit of $9 million a year. Additionally, he possesses the aforementioned 10-team no-trade clause.

That being said, moving on from Hamilton, even if it requires retaining a portion of his salary, would open up considerable space for Mehta to work with.

Both Simon Nemec and Paul Cotter are pending restricted free agents 

Among the decisions that Mehta will have ahead of him is the fate of pending restricted free agents Simon Nemec and Paul Cotter.

Cotter was one of a handful of names on the Devils roster who were heavily involved in trade discussions in the days and weeks leading up to last month’s NHL Trade Deadline, and while he remained on the roster, his regression – 16 goals scored in 2024-25 to just six goals scored in 2025-26 – make him an ideal candidate to waive goodbye to.

Nemec, who reached new career-highs in goals and assists, could potentially be dangled as trade bait in order to acquire more of a scoring punch. Like Cotter, Nemec was included in trade rumors in the days and weeks leading up to the NHL trade deadline, though he ultimately remained in place.

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