Jake Evans Could Be The Perfect Target
Jakes Evans - Photo credit Kamin Oncea - Imagn Images
Speculation is rife throughout the league, with the trade deadline fast approaching and the scouts multiplying at every game. In an article published Saturday for RG.org, James Murphy reports that the New Jersey Devils should be closely monitored. He adds that GM Tom Fitzgerald “would love a banger that can score in their top-six and a center that can float in the middle-six forward group.”
Murphy also mentions that according to multiple reports, Jake Evans would be one of the Devils' primary targets. The Montreal Canadiens center certainly wouldn’t fit the “banger that can score” requirement, but he’s the kind of “center that could float in the middle-six forward group”.
However, for me, Evans’s most marketable quality is his penalty-killing skills, something New Jersey doesn’t need. At the time of writing, the Devils have the second most effective penalty killing in the league at 83.6%. Nico Hischier, Dawson Mercer, Eric Haula, and Jesper Bratt are doing excellent work on the special unit. Unless one of them was to be traded, it’s hard for me to see the Devils giving much for the Canadiens’ center.
On Saturday night, the Minnesota Wild, 31st in penalty killing, acquired Gustav Nyquist from the Nashville Predators for a second-round pick at the 2026 draft. The Tennessee outfit had to retain half of his $3,185,000 cap hit. While the 35-year-old pivot can play on the PK, he certainly cannot fix Minnesota’s woes on his own.
Currently, Frederic Gaudreau and Marcus Foligno are the forwards of the first unit, while Marat Khusnutdinov and Jakub Lauko are assigned to the second. With all due respect to the second unit, those are hardly household names, and they have under 200 NHL games combined. That’s not a lot of mileage.
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Meanwhile, Evans is 28 and has played in 328 NHL games, most of them on the penalty kill. In the last two seasons, he’s shown that he can pitch in anywhere in the lineup if required. On a contender, Evans is a Swiss knife center that you can tuck in on the fourth line and pull out when needed, be it to kill a penalty or to fill in higher in the lineup when needed.
His low cap hit at $1.7 M makes him an affordable commodity, and since the Canadiens haven’t been able to ink him to an extension, it’s time to move him to maximize the return. I still believe he could be useful in the Habs lineup going forward and worthy of an extension, but it appears the price tag is too high. Salary cap rising or not, there's a limit to how much a team can afford to put on a bottom six center, even on one who can move up at times...
Another contender who’s seriously struggling on the PK is the Edmonton Oilers with a 75% success rate. Connor McDavid and co. fell short of the ultimate prize last season, and special teams are pivotal in the playoffs. Evans could be an upgrade on Kasperi Kapanen on their second PK unit.
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