Bruins and Devils Swap Forwards
The Devils have traded RFA Pavel Zacha to the Bruins for Erik Haula. Haula is 31 years old and is a 7th round pick of the Minnesota Wild. He is entering the final year of a 2-year deal that has a cap hit of $2.375M. Zacha on the other hand is only 25 years old and was a 1st round pick of the Devils. He is currently without a contract, but has arbitration rights.
The move was made in a cap dump for the Devils as they free up more cap space to make a pitch to Johnny Gaudreau. The Devils moved Zacha due to his arbitration rights and the fact that they would be unable to walk away from any arbitrator awarded contract under $4.3M. Valuable cap space they need if they want to sign a marque free agent.
The Bruins on the other hand, get a player still looking to find his scoring touch and another winger to play in their top 6 alongside fellow Czechian David Pastrnak. This could be the first on many deals we see today as teams look to clear cap space to go after former RFAs that are now UFAs because they did not receive qualifying offers.
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