While the Golden Knights and Panthers are still contesting the Stanley Cup and the NHL draft remains a couple of weeks away, at least there’s a timely resolution for arguably our biggest-name UFA in Damon Severson. New Jersey and Columbus completed a surprisingly rare sign-and-trade deal, allowing Severson to go to Columbus on an eight-year deal at a reported $6.25 million per season, while we receive a third-round pick from Columbus (#80 overall – transferred from Calgary) in exchange for trading his rights and facilitating what can only be described as a win-win deal for all parties.

Reading the tea leaves as a Devils fan, you knew this day was coming probably from the moment that Tom Fitzgerald acquired defenseman John Marino last offseason and suddenly our right side was stacked with not only Marino and Dougie Hamilton, but also #2 overall pick Simon Nemec – who had a terrific AHL debut season with 12 goals, 34 points and a +13 in 65 regular season games (as well as a goal and three assists in six playoff games). Not to mention the as-of-yet unsettled contract situations with RFA forwards Jesper Bratt and Timo Meier make cap space more limited than it appears. Fitzy was (as usual) honest when discussing the future with Severson this offseason:

It was just going to be a matter of where Severson wound up and how it happened. To his credit, Severson never let his uncertain future affect his play this year, as he was finally able to enjoy a little more team success after one playoff season (2017-18) surrounded by a whole bunch of losing the rest of his career since debuting as a rookie in 2014-15. Admittedly, the fact Severson has been so identified with the losing years here (and the fact we have bigger fish to fry this month with our RFA contracts) makes me a bit more…blase about losing a guy who’s been here for nine seasons and performed at a reasonably high level than I should be, though at times he also made annoying mental mistakes and his plus-minus – if you want to put anything into that – left a lot to be desired too.

Maybe to a degree I’d describe my feelings for Severson as love-hate, but one thing I won’t deny is that he is a good person and loyal soldier who never caused any real controversy through a lot of lean years, so I’m happy he was able to get every penny he could in free agency. I’m not sure he’ll be getting any more than that – although Columbus is clearly making yet another desperate attempt at win-now this offseason given their recent rumored hiring of the controversial Mike Babcock as coach, and their recent trade for Ivan Provorov from the Flyers. Still, it would be a bit of a cruel joke if Severson finally had one year of team success then went right back to losing with Columbus.

Of course, a lot of the time you can’t get both money and a good team in free agency because usually the good teams don’t have enough cap space to throw around big contracts – exhibit A our signing Hamilton when we were still in the middle of losing while needing to hold onto cap space now to retain our own guys. And given that we did trade him in division, I can’t say I’m exactly rooting for Severson to have a lot of team success. I do like that Fitz did right by him and allowed him to get an eight-year deal, though certainly a mid-third round pick is a nice little enticer to do so as well.

Not entirely through fault of his own, there weren’t really a lot of Severson highlights to cite or remember prior to this season but he certainly had a seminal moment in January with his OT winner against the Rangers that completed an emotional comeback from two goals down and helped stop our December swoon:

Seeing how neat and tidy the Severson situation got resolved makes me wonder why there aren’t more sign-and-trades in the NHL. Certainly the player has motivation to do so, wanting to get the extra year on their contract though admittedly most guys who’d command max term usually get re-signed by their teams, or at least they try to do so until the last minute. Also Columbus had no intention of getting into a July 1 bidding war with other teams, most of whom are closer to winning on paper in spite of their so-far splashy offseason moves. When you’re not a premier destination, your only potential advantages in signing guys are money and getting negotiating rights before free agency. Maybe deals like this and the quasi sign-and-trade with Matthew Thachuk last offseason will facilitate more of this from NHL GM’s.

Hopefully Sevo enjoys good health, a good family life and individual success in Columbus.