Devils have achieved heavenly offseason with roster retool

The Cup can neither be won or lost the first week of July, but I dare you to tell me a team in the East that took more strides to lifting the chalice in 11 months than the Devils.

GM Tom Fitzgerald and the New Jersey hierarchy followed their curious gap year with a strategic vengeance that, if it did not address every deficiency, seems to have come pretty darn close, and that started with the hiring of Sheldon Keefe behind the bench as head coach.

Jacob Markstrom has filled the void in net, Brett Pesce and Brenden Dillon should solidify a defense that was way too skittish and young last season, the additions of Stefan Noesen and Paul Cotter should solidify and add physicality to the bottom six with Tomas Tatar adding depth to the middle of the lineup.

The Devils have been a little bit too cool for school the past couple of years. Too much of a surfer vibe. That was obliquely referenced by Fitzgerald, who talked about having created “a more mature team.”

In retrospect, do you know what has helped?

Signing Jack Hughes to an eight-year deal for an annual average value of $8 million on his second contract after the 2019 first-overall had played just 119 games in his NHL career has helped immensely, just the way the Penguins were always helped immensely by Sidney Crosby taking $8.7M per and not worrying about it in the least when Evgeni Malkin came in at $9.5M per.

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(At time, Hughes had recorded 20 goals and 55 points in 119 NHL games. Alexis Lafreniere, the following year’s first-overall, recorded 26 goals and 44 points in his first 119 NHL games, now please continue.)

When your franchise player does not feel the need to scarf up every nickel that fell into the crevices of the family room furniture, it gives the GM the ability to sign people like Pesce, and to trade for and extend Timo Meier — for $8.8M per — without having to contend with an artificial Jack Hughes ceiling.

The Devils seem serious this time around. The gap year has come to an end.

They’ve been telling me for years that newly installed Carolina GM Eric Tulsky is one of the most brilliant analytical minds in hockey, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a bit confused as to why the ’Canes would have signed Jack Roslovic to a one-year free agent deal worth — wait, checking again to see if this was a typo — two point eight million dollars?

Who had this Rangers reunion in Detroit on their Bingo card where Patrick Kane, Vlad Tarasenko, Erik Gustafsson, Andrew Copp, Tyler Motte and Cam Talbot hooked up wearing the Winged Wheel?

Time is now for Rangers to move on from playoff hero Barclay Goodrow

Over the past five years the Maple Leafs have signed or acquired Jake Muzzin, T.J. Brodie, Mark Giordano, Tyson Barrie, Cody Ceci, John Klingberg, Gustafsson, Zach Bogosian, Luke Schenn and now Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev to play defense, and I’m just wondering when they will get around to Igor Ulanov and Dave Karpa.

Denial seems to be the name of the river that runs through UBS these days, with the Islanders somehow still wedded to the concept that their past-decade nucleus just needs a little dressing up to return to COVID-era contention.

Yes, there is little salary-cap space with which to maneuver, but that’s what happens when you can’t bring yourself to try and get maximum return on the trade market for Brock Nelson, who will turn 33 the second week of the season and is entering the final season of his contract — which I guess means we can all wait for the announcement of a six-year extension.

This is what happens when Jean-Gabriel Pageau is still clogging the middle, and this is what happens when Anders Lee, as exemplary a player and captain who ever pulled on the logo, is 34 and isn’t getting faster.

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By the way, is Ilya Sorokin the Islanders’ No. 1 goaltender?

I would say Patrick Roy has a pretty big job in front of him from behind the Islanders bench.

If I had only thought to record the call, it would be presented as Exhibit A in the case against addressing the non-state-tax teams’ advantage in the marketplace, but the first sentence from an agent who had just signed a client with one of those clubs was, and I kid you not: “And no state tax!”

It’s become a mockery when no-state-tax Nashville hands out a total of $108.5 million in contracts to Brady Skjei, Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault within the first hour or two of free agency, and no-tax Tampa Bay sweeps in to outdo Carolina on Jake Guentzel, not that I ever mind the penurious Tom Dundon losing out on a player.

Six teams — the Panthers, Lightning, Golden Knights, Stars, Predators and Kraken — have advantages that 26 other clubs do not. They are exploiting them. Four of the past five Cup champions — Florida, Vegas, Tampa Bay twice — are from no-tax states. Eleven of the past 20 conference finalists have come from no-tax states.

When in the world are these 26 owners going to step up and demand the league level the cap? Or do they sit back and allow these similar types of inequities in the industries in which they made their fortunes?

Finally, and this is kind of serious business: Will those folks on the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee who have a vendetta against Alexander Mogilny please identify themselves so that we don’t have to paint all the members with the same brush of ignorance and disrespect?

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