Insider Reveals Devils' 5 Offseason Needs

The New Jersey Devils underperformed this season and there is a lot of work planned for this offseason to get the team back to the playoffs. There are upgrades wanted at all three positions.

According to Frank Seravalli on Daily Faceoff Live, "A GM messaged me yesterday and said the Devils are looking for a top-6 forward, a bottom-6 forward, top-4 defenseman, bottom-4 defenseman, and a goalie."

The most obvious need is goaltending. Since the Devils were only able to partially address this at the trade deadline by bringing in Jake Allen and Kaapo Kahkonen, the latter is going to head to free agency and New Jersey is a favorite to land one of the top goalies available.

By looking at the team's UFAs, it appears as though Brendam Smith, Chris Tierney, and Tomas Nosek won't be back then as they fall into the bottom-6 forward group and bottom-4 defenseman group.

The top-4 defenseman will likely be someone to play the left side as Kevin Bahl is not a top pairing d-man and Luke Hughes shouldn't have to take on such a big role at age 20. There really isn't any help after the team's top six defensemen, so it makes a lot of sense that depth would also be a need.

The top-6 forward is the most intriguing. The Devils have cap space and there are some good players to attract a high-end free agent. Alexander Holtz could easily slide down to the third line if someone (a winger) is signed to play in the top-6 for now. Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Timo Meier, and Dawson Mercer are going nowhere it seems, so there is really only one spot available. I expect a pretty good player to be brought in as Tyler Toffoli was a year ago.

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