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1) I didn't get to touch on this the other day -- there's been too much going on -- but I like that Ray Shero wasn't willing to give too much term to Kevin Shattenkirk in hopes of beating out the New York Rangers for his services.
Shattenkirk was the best free-agent defenseman on the market and would have addressed a huge need, but giving max-term, for example, and paying him ~$6.5 million per could cause more harm down the road than it'd save right now.
Shero spent a couple years getting out from all the bad contracts he inherited and has made it very clear he doesn't want to make any moves that would put him in that position again.
Shattenkirk would have provided a big boost right now but how many players are worth ~$6.5 million per at age 33, 34, 35? Not many.
Shero said Shattenkirk didn't ask, or push, for a longer term deal, but I imagine he'd be more likely to seriously consider signing with a team that wasn't the Rangers if there were two or three more years being offered at the same price (I love the deal he signed with New York, by the way).
2) With an Ilya Kovalchuk trade now out of the question, it's safe to say the Devils will have to move one of their forwards *if* they're going to have any chance of acquiring an impact defenseman. There's just not much available in free agency.
Andrei Markov is solid but he's 38 and I'd imagine he wants to play his last season or two for a contender. Cody Franson is decent, too, but Damon Severson is better, the Devils like Ben Lovejoy, and, given where the team is at, it makes no sense to bring him in and play him ahead of Steve Santini.
The Devils have more centers than you can count, a solid prospect pool, ~$25 million in cap space (when Ryane Clowe goes on LTIR), and their full collection of draft picks.
The assets are there to make a move. They will just have to wait for the right opportunity to present itself (see the Marcus Johansson trade).
3) As far as potential trade partners go, I still think the Ducks make sense. They were one of the finalists for left winger Patrick Marleau so clearly they want to add more scoring up front.
It's also worth noting the Devils were among several who expressed interest in Sami Vatanen earlier this off-season and, in general, teams prefer to make sizable deals outside of the conference.
If there's a deal to be made, I imagine a guy like Adam Henrique would interest the Ducks. He has 50 goals and 90 points to his name over the last two seasons and has a couple more years left on his contract at a very reasonable price ($4 million).
The Ducks generally prefer not to spend to the cap so if they made a deal centered around Vatanen and Henrique, they'd add the scoring they're looking for while saving a bit of money ($875K, to be exact), which would leave them with ~$6 million in space and two depth roster spots to fill.
I'm not saying anything will happen between the two sides, but rather they could be a good trade match.
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