Late last night the Devils acquired 24-year-old Luke Evangelista from the Predators in exchange for Colorado's 2028 1st round pick (conditional and could slide to 2029), and New Jersey's 2028 2nd round pick. 

What the Devils Get: 

Evangelista is being paid a bargain $3 Million this year, is still an RFA at the end of the deal, and just shattered his career high in points despite shooting only 6.8% last season. He is likely going to end up on one of the top two lines, either alongside Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt, or alongside Nico Hischier and Timo Meier. Either way, it’s bad news for one of Anthony Mantha or Dawson Mercer, as the other two top-six options at right wing. One of them will end up on line three, likely bumping Connor Brown down to the fourth line – barring at least one of the wingers being shipped out in a big deal for a star player who has requested a trade or happens to have brothers on the team.

The trade should be a big boost to Evangelista’s even strength numbers, especially if he ends up alongside Hughes instead of taking the heavier matchups with the Hischier line. That would also likely see his even strength ice time rise from 14:30 per game, to somewhere around the 16 minute mark. However, with Hughes, Meier, Bratt, and Hischier in place, there's a real possibility that he sees very little power play time. 

The best hope for Evangelista is to supplant Meier, who was dropped off the top unit for the final quarter of the season last year in favour of Connor Brown. If Evangelista doesn't end up on the top unit, it would drastically drop his power play production, which was 17 PPPs last season. Knocking 10-12 points off of that will be tough to replace at even strength, making this year’s safe projection for Evangelista now somewhat similar to last year in the 55-point range, but maybe approaching 70 if he does stick with the top unit.

What the Predators "Get": 

Evangelista was one of the team's top scoring options on the wing, and at 24 years old, could have been part of the next future wave that it seemed the Predators were building towards. The moves this summer to bring in depth pieces seemed to indicate a desire to make a step up in the standings this season, but that was before shipping out more of a young core piece for picks, which tells another story. Unless the picks are then flipped in some kind of bigger deal (which seems unlikely given that Evangelista would likely be more valuable to most teams), we can then land on the next conclusion that this might have something to do with Evangelista's future contract demands, as his contract expiring next summer could line him up for a huge pay raise into the territory of an eight-figure salary. 

The loss of Evangelista from the lineup will boost a few other wings up, creating some space for a few players who are going to be battling for spots. Matthew Wood, Joakim Kemell, and Nils Hoglander are all looking to get their trajectories back on track after they have had various stumbles over the last few seasons. Overall though, it's a slight downgrade for the Predators across the board, but likely not a major shift to really change the outlook on any of the Preds players come draft day. If anything though it makes me wonder about the Predators selling off more in-season, which would be hard on the goaltenders Juuse Saros and Justus Annunen. 

Players this helps:

Luke Evangelista

Matthew Wood/Joakim Kemell 

Players this hurts: 

Anthony Mantha/Dawson Mercer

Connor Brown