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1) Over the last few weeks, the New York Islanders have frequently been mentioned as a possible landing spot for Ilya Kovalchuk.
It's pretty easy to see why as they are looking to add scoring, they want to prove to John Tavares they are serious about winning, thus enticing him to re-sign, they are generally a playoff team, and they're seemingly one of the teams Kovalchuk would be content going to.
Should he end up being moved to the Islanders, a player I'd target who could realistically be had in a deal is Calvin de Haan.
The 26-year-old defenseman is coming off a respectable season where he put up 25 points in 82 games. His underlying numbers were pretty good, too, as the Islanders controlled a higher percentage of the shot attempts and goals with him on the ice than without him.
He is a good skater, he can move the puck a little bit, and would certainly be an upgrade over a lot of what the Devils have on defense.
Where things get tricky, though, is the Islanders' list of exposed players, barring a trade prior, will probably be headlined by de Haan (and Thomas Hickey).
Kovalchuk can't be signed and traded until July 1st, which is obviously after the expansion draft, so it's possible de Haan gets scooped up before the two sides make a deal even if that's the route they wanted to take.
There is a lot of uncertainty involved so we'll have to wait and see how it all plays out. de Haan would be a nice get, though.
2) One way to get a feel for how a player's season went is to combine 5v5 Corsi For% and 5v5 Goals For% into one number.
It's by no means a perfect way to do things but it gives you a quick glance at a player's ability to drive play and get results while weighing the two.
Obviously, goals are most important -- outscoring the opposition is the objective of hockey -- but if a player fares well in that regard despite being out-possessed, especially if the difference is significant, it is probably more luck than skill driven.
From the other end of the spectrum, helping your team outplay the opposition only means so much if the results aren't there.
With that in mind, I thought it'd be fun to look back at how each Devil fared this past season.
We'll start with the forwards.
I think this mostly checks out. Stefan Noesen did a lot in a short period of time so it's not surprising he is high on the list. Over a larger sample size, I very much doubt that continues but credit to him for making the most of his opportunity.
I don't think any of the bottom-3 should be anywhere near the NHL team next season.
Now to the defense.
Say what you want about Yohann Auvitu but good things happened when he was out there. The numbers don't come from a large sample size, and he was sheltered, but I think we can all agree he deserved more rope given how horrible the defense was this season.
Damon Severson had an extremely unlucky year in that the Devils played their opponents even, if not outplayed them, with him on the ice but he didn't get the results to show for it. Still, he finished atop the list of regulars on the blue line, which says a lot about how bad the defense was this season.
Steve Santini did alright given the circumstances and was pretty much the only other remote bright spot.
If not anything else, I think this helps put into perspective how badly Ray Shero needs to revamp the blue line this summer.
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Devils Q&A: On Severson's next deal, defense targets, Hischier and more
Let the Kovalchuk sweepstakes begin
Why I have Nico Hischier ranked above Nolan Patrick
Beau Bennett quietly effective in debut season with the Devils
The Hall - Zajac - Palmieri line was one of the NHL's best in 2016-17 
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