5 Trade Landing Spots for Dougie Hamilton Amid NHL Rumors

After making a couple of big moves in the summer of 2024, the New Jersey Devils have been a little quieter so far this offseason, focusing mostly on depth moves at forward. They signed Connor Brown and Evgenii Dadonov, adding some secondary scoring depth to an offense that finished in the bottom half of the NHL in goals.

While they might be done with meaningful free-agent additions, the Devils could still be in the market for a big move or two.

One name that has been the subject of trade rumors this offseason is defenseman Dougie Hamilton.

Hamilton is still an outstanding defenseman when healthy and one of the Devils' best players, but injuries have limited him significantly over the past two seasons. He also carries a $9 million salary-cap hit. The Devils have just $6 million in cap space remaining, still have to re-sign restricted free agent Luke Hughes and could use a little more scoring help up front.

All of those factors together make Hamilton a potential trade candidate. It would be a challenging move to make, given his salary and the fact that he is still an outstanding player, but there has been plenty of speculation surrounding him.

Let's take a look at a few potential landing spots if the Devils were to make a serious effort to trade him.

Dallas Stars

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From a pure hockey standpoint this would be a perfect match.

Hamilton plays on the right side, and Dallas has a black hole of talent on the right side of its defense. All of Dallas' best defenders (Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell and Thomas Harley) are left-handed and any of them could use a right-handed complement.

Dallas is in a win-now mode and looking to get back over the top in the Western Conference, so a big addition like Hamilton could do wonders for them.

The problem is going to be with the salary cap.

The Stars are pressed to the upper limits of the cap (only $1.9 million in space) and would need to shed significant salary or get creative when it comes to taking on a contract like Hamilton's. Money would likely need to be retained or funneled through another team in the form of a three-team trade, or they would need to make another trade elsewhere.

If the Stars were actually to move on from Jason Robertson and trade him, it could open the door for an accompanying blockbuster. But that's a lot of moving parts and would be difficult to pull off.

The fit, however, would still be perfect.

Detroit Red Wings

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The Detroit Red Wings' playoff drought is approaching a full decade, and they are now six years into general manager Steve Yzerman's tenure. Pressure should be building. The incentive to win now should be there. If it is, they have a strange way of going about dealing with it because they have done very little this offseason outside of bringing in James van Riemsdyk and trading for John Gibson.

As good as some of their younger core players are, that's not going to be enough to make up the difference in the Eastern Conference playoff race.

They need more help offensively and defensively, and Hamilton could help satisfy both needs. They also have more than $12 million in cap space and could fit in Hamilton's remaining contract without having to do much else or get too creative.

Yzerman talked about not getting a chance to sign any of the top free agents because a lot of them re-signed in their current spots, or went elsewhere before they could talk to any of them. He can't give up on improving the team after that and needs to get aggressive in the trade market.

Hamilton would be a perfect player to go after if the Devils are seriously willing to listen or shop him.

Toronto Maple Leafs

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The Maple Leafs already have a lot of big-money, veteran defensemen on their roster, so do they need another?

Well, if the goal is to win a Stanley Cup and get better ... then yeah. They do. And Hamilton would certainly fill the need.

Toronto has more than $5 million in salary cap space, while also still having a few more contracts that could be dumped or traded to clear more room (Max Domi, David Kampf, Calle Jarnkrok).

The Maple Leafs have Chris Tanev and Brandon Carlo on the right side of their defense already, but Carlo did not play up to expectations following his trade from Boston and is unlikely to do so in the future. Upgrading that side of the defense should still be a priority, even if it comes at a cost.

This is still a team with Stanley Cup expectations that is not even getting close to winning it. No potential upgrade should be ignored.

Columbus Blue Jackets

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Whether or not Columbus would be interested in this sort of thing remains to be seen.

It's also a possibility that New Jersey would not want to trade Hamilton within the division.

But you don't have to squint hard to see why it would make sense for the Blue Jackets to at least try.

They needed to upgrade their defense this offseason, and so far have only re-signed Ivan Provorov to a long-term contract extension that may have been one of the offseason's biggest overpays. The defense itself is not only not really changed at all from the 2024-25 season, but it is still not particularly good.

Not only would Hamilton help fix that, but Columbus still has as much salary cap space as any team in the league. The Blue Jackets entered this offseason with big expectations for fixing their roster, and so far have swung and missed. They should take another swing.

San Jose Sharks

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The Sharks should have two primary motivations for wanting to explore a Hamilton trade.

For one, they should be doing everything in their power to start adding as much talent as they can to a young core that already features a couple of rising stars and potential impact players. You don't want to get into a situation where you waste Macklin Celebrini's early years because you're waiting on other prospects to develop or being patient. Start making moves, start giving him some help.

Also, they need to spend some money on somebody with still more than $19 million in salary cap space available this offseason.

The Sharks have multiple first- and second-round picks in the 2026 NHL draft and have some trade assets that could be spent on a legitimate top-pairing defender.

Would Hamilton be willing to waive his no-trade protections to play for a team that's still going through a rebuild? That is not necessarily a given. But the Sharks have a need, assets to trade and money to spend. They should find out if he would be willing to play there.

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