Winners and Losers of the Damon Severson Sign-and-Trade to the Columbus Blue Jackets
The Columbus Blue Jackets are off to an aggressive start this offseason.
They continued to try and strengthen their defense on Friday with a sign-and-trade deal involving the New Jersey Devils and long-time veteran Damon Severson.
That deal comes just a couple of days after a three-team deal that saw them acquire Ivan Provorov from the Philadelphia Flyers.
In order to get Severson, the Blue Jackets are sending a third-round pick to the Devils who signed Severson to the max-term contract (eight years) for $50 million. That is a $6.25 million salary cap hit per season.
It is a bold move, so let us dig into the early winners and losers from the trade.
Winner: Damon Severson
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Severson is the obvious winner here because he is the person getting the truck full of money delivered to his front door.
There was always a very good possibility that he was going to get paid this summer -- whether by New Jersey or somebody else -- because he was arguably the top defenseman available in a very thin free-agent market.
Free agency is always great for players like Severson, especially when it is a thin class where they might be one of the top players.
It is by far the biggest contract of his career and a $2 million per year raise over what he was making on his last deal with the Devils.
He turns 29 later this summer so this was always going to be Severson's last big chance to cash in with a major contract. He got it.
Loser: The Unrestricted Free Agent Market
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More specifically, teams that were hoping to find a top-four defenseman on the open market.
With Severson now off the market, the top free-agent defenders are limited to the likes of John Klingberg, Kevin Shattenkirk, Ryan Graves, Dmitry Orlov, Shayne Gostisbehere and Brian Dumoulin.
With all due respect to those players, that is a group that is just waiting to get badly overpaid by some desperate team.
Granted, that might be what Columbus ended up doing with Severson, but he brings a lot more value to a team than pretty much anybody listed above will in their current state. Especially as a defenseman that a team might be counting on to play big minutes.
Orlov is still solid, but at 31, is probably not a player a team wants to invest big money in long-term (somebody will, but it is not what you want to do).
Gostisbehere has a lot of value offensively and on the power play, but needs to be kept in a sheltered role.
Klingberg had almost no market to speak of in free agency a year ago in another weak class and his one mediocre year split between Anaheim and Minnesota is not likely to change that.
Beyond those big names, there is simply not a lot out there for defensemen.
If you hear that your team is looking to upgrade its defense in free agency, you should be afraid.
Very afraid.
Winner: The Devils' Salary-Cap Situation
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The Devils are taking a small hit in the short-term (losing Severson) to get a big win in the long-term (not having to pay Severson that contract).
New Jersey has one of the best young teams in the league and even though two of their most important players are already signed long-term (Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier), they are going to have a lot more players due for big-time contract extensions in the very near future.
And by very near future, we mean this offseason.
By not paying Severson $6.25 million per season, the Devils will have over $34 million in salary-cap space to retain key RFA's and add to their roster.
Among those key RFA's are top-line forwards Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier, as well as Yegor Sharangovich.
They will not be cheap and every dollar the Devils save elsewhere can go to keeping them in place.
It might also give the Devils some much-needed flexibility to address its biggest Achilles' heel from this season and the playoffs -- goaltending.
Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid might not be the duo that can get them a championship, and with players like Connor Hellebuyck and Juuse Saros potentially available in trade, some extra salary-cap space would be nice to have on hand.
The Devils will still have an excellent defense right now, along with an excellent farm system that boasts top prospects like Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec and Seamus Casey.
They had the flexibility to let Severson go, even if it might be a small step backward in the short-term.
Loser: Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen
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In some way, you have to respect Kekäläinen's willingness to not care what the outside world thinks of his team and swing for the fences.
He has done this before and he is not afraid to make a bold investment in the immediate future of his team, even if it is not quite ready to realistically compete.
He is doing that again this offseason with the Provorov and Severson deals.
Columbus has now made a major investment in its defense over the past few years, signing Zach Werenski to a long-term deal worth more than $9 million per year, adding Erik Gudbranson in free agency last year, drafting David Jiricek No. 6 overall in 2022, and now adding Provorov and Severson.
But how good IS that defense? And is it worthy of the salary-cap commitment they are dedicating to it?
Between Werenski, Gudbranson, Provorov and Severson the Blue Jackets are paying their top-four $24.4 million against the cap for the next few years. They have over $30 million going to their defense as a whole.
Provorov plays a lot of big minutes, but he has never really shown an ability to play them consistently well. Gudbranson's contract was a disaster from the moment pen was put to paper, and that cap hit is one of the big reasons they were forced to give away Oliver Bjorkstrand to Seattle in a salary dump trade.
In the short term, there is nothing wrong with wanting to add Severson to your roster. He is a very good player, he has strong offensive instincts, he is a great passer, and he will make them a little better. But he is also prone to mistakes defensively and has some shortcomings in his own end of the ice.
He is also already 29 years old.
That is by no means "over the hill" for an NHL player, especially a good one, but the Blue Jackets need to be thinking long-term here. No matter how much they spend on free agents and trades this offseason this is not a team that is ready to compete this season. They were one of the worst teams in the NHL a year ago and still have some glaring flaws on their roster.
Signing a non-star that is closing in on their age-30 season to a seven-or eight-year deal in free agency (which is essentially what Columbus did here) is a recipe for disaster in the NHL. Those deals do not tend to work out long-term and within three or four years, teams are usually looking for a way out of them. Either through a buyout, a salary retained trade, or a swap of undesirable contracts. That could come back to haunt Columbus in a few years when maybe it is ready to compete.
As it stands now, Columbus has about $5 million remaining under the salary cap, the team doesn't have a viable No. 1 (or No. 2) center, it has major question marks in goal and it is a team that finished 30th in goals scored a year ago. How is it going to improve that with so little salary cap space to work with?
Obviously, the potential for more deals is still out there and salary can be moved. But when Columbus had to do that a year ago to make room for its big offseason additions it saw them trade one of its best players (Bjorkstrand) for two second-round draft picks. It did not work out as planned.
