The Devils got their offseason off to a great start by getting a third round pick from Columbus for a player that was very likely to leave next month anyway.
Damon Severson was drafted by the Devils in 2012 and was set to become a UFA for the first time in his career on July 1st. Prior to this trade, Severson was the longest tenured Devil and has played 663 games with the Devils in the regular season and playoffs. Over the course of his career with the Devils, Severson has proved himself to be a (mostly) reliable two way defenseman able to handle top four minutes consistently. In his career so far, Severson averages over 21 minutes of ice time per game and has shown himself to be capable of running the point on the power play. Of Severson’s 263 career points as a Devil, 85 of them came on the power play.
This trade makes a lot of sense for both teams. From the Devils end, they really couldn’t afford to keep Severson. Tom Fitzgerald is trying to bring back both Timo Meier and Jesper Bratt on long term deals so signing Severson to a contract of fair market value for him would have been next to impossible. Furthermore, the Devils have two stud defensive prospects ready to join the NHL squad full time next year in Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec. With Severson on the roster, it would become very difficult to keep Bratt and Meier and almost impossible to pay both Hughes and Nemec. As you can see, it was all but certain the Devils would not be able to keep Severson and he would sign elsewhere in the first week of July. By allowing Columbus to negotiate with Severson early, and by signing him to an 8 year contract before trading him, the Devils went from losing Severson for nothing to gaining a third round pick for a guy who played his last game as a Devil over a month ago. The Devils cleared cap space, cleared roster space for two young studs on entry level deals, and gained a draft pick in the process. Awesome deal for the Devils. Only drawback is that they helped out a divisional foe in the process…
This trade also makes sense for the Blue Jackets. They were a total mess last year. Obviously injuries didn’t help but they also had a paper thin defense and unreliable (at best) goaltending. To make matters even worse, their power play was well below league average, scoring on just 18% of their opportunities. Adding Severson to the roster, along with Provorov just a few days ago, makes Columbus a much deeper team on the back end. That team still has a ton of work to do and Severson is not a one man show that can put out that dumpster fire alone, but he can absolutely help them out. They were able to lock up Severson for eight years instead of seven by trading with the Devils before free agency opened and other teams had the chance to outbid them or even negotiate with Severson at all.
Severson has gotten a lot of hate from Devils fans over the years and a good deal of it was justified. Severson has made some truly bone headed mistakes that have cost the Devils goals and games. These mistakes, whether they were own goals or taking multiple unnecessary penalties late in games while the Devils were trying to rally, have rightfully infuriated many Devils fans. With that being said, I believe that Severson’s strengths outweigh his flaws and the Blue Jackets got a good player at a fair price while the Devils were able to add an asset in exchange for a player they were about to lose for nothing. A rare win win trade. Now it will be interesting to see what the Devils do with pending UFA Ryan Graves. Tom Fitzgerald is just getting started and I can’t wait to see how he makes this team even better this summer.
The Morning Skate 
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