Potential Destinations for Tyler Bertuzzi
Finding a trade partner for Tyler Bertuzzi is going to be rather easy I presume. There are only two drawbacks to his game: First, he isn’t vaccinated which means he can’t play in Canada. Therefore, I highly doubt he’ll be playing for any Canadian team if he get’s traded. Secondly, he is due a contract after next season so a team is going to need to have cap space to re-sign him.
If a team can accomplish or settle for both of those things, then finding a trade won’t be rather hard.
Knowing the things that I said above, I decided to look at capfriendly.com to figure out the cap thing first. There were a lot of teams that would be able to pay his salary so that part wasn’t hard. However, they still have to be a team that is in the market to add someone along the lines of Bertuzzi.
Knowing that, I have a couple teams that I’d expect to be interested in him.
New Jersey Devils
This one probably isn’t much of a surprise as their intentions this off-season hasn’t exactly been a smokescreen. They’ve been tied to Claude Giroux since the beginning of the off-season and last year they signed defenseman, Dougie Hamilton to a rather large contract. In my opinion, if you throw Tyler Bertuzzi’s name out there to the Devils, they’d be intrigued.
The New Jersey Devils currently have a very young team, but they’ve been in a spot similar to the Red Wings just a little futher along. They are in the market to add veteran players to help balance out their team a little bit. Lucky for them, Bertuzzi fits that critera and could be available.
With the Devils having a very young team when you consider their team as a whole, they have a ton of cap space available. With roughly $25,000,000 in cap space available. They’d be able to afford Bertuzzi’s $4,500,000 easily and give him the extension he is looking for. Additionally, he would be a perfect fit for their team.
With Jack Hughes coming off a great season and Nico Hischier having a breakout season, they are going to be looking for a winger that can play on the top line and Bertuzzi has done just that since becoming a Red Wing.
I think Bertuzzi would actually be a great fit with the Devils.
Buffalo Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres are very similar to the Devils when you consider their team’s structure. It’s filled with a lot of sub-par veteran players and a bunch of young guys who need some leadership and guidance as they make their transition into the NHL.
Between Tage Thompson, Peyton Krebs, Dylan Cozens, Owen Power, and many other prospects, they have a lot of guys in the locker room that haven’t really produced or played at the NHL level. I mean, Thompson is the oldest of those names and he just broke out this past season after struggling for years.
Now, I will say that their addition of Alex Tuch in the trade that sent Jack Eichel to Vegas was a very good trade. Tuch showed great leadership qualities in Vegas and I expect that to result in him eventually earning the ‘C’ in Buffalo.
He clearly loves the city of Buffalo and even grew up a Sabres fan according to his press confrence after being traded. However, do the Sabres fans really feel that Kyle Okposso and Jeff Skinner are the players they need? If so, I feel like you’re lying to youself. No offense, of course- I just find it hard to believe.
If they were to trade for Tyler Bertuzzi, they’d be getting another veteran player who is proven but is also still in his prime. He has good leadership to help out as a teacher on the ice to the young guys. And he also would help with their production.
Now, I know that they have been interested in adding Patrick Kane via. trade. And if there’s truth to that rumor, I don’t expect them to go with Tyler Bertuzzi. However, if this Patrick Kane rumors are false or they can’t agree on a trade package, then I could see this being Bertuzzi’s landing spot.
Nashville Predators
The Nasvhille Predators team is… interesting. When looking at their roster, I don’t really see how they made the playoffs. I mean, they have a decent top six and they have a good defenseman in Roman Josi, but what makes them a playoff contendor? That’s what boggles me.
This past season they had Filip Forsberg, Matt Duchene, and Roman Josi lead the way into the playoffs. While being on the shoulders of Vezina finalist, Jusse Saros. So, that helped, but the depth they had on their team was pretty pathetic.
Adding another big name player should be on the top of their list this off-season along with adding depth. So, with that being said, I expect this to be more than just a Tyler Bertuzzi trade. I could see something with the Predators being a big move.
I recently wrote about how the Red Wings should target Filip Forsberg in free agency because the Red Wings need to add a legitamite star. However, I could see the Nashville Predators and Red Wings making a rather crazy deal that would send Forsberg to Detroit and Bertuzzi, Zadina, and something else to Nashville.
I don’t think that Nashville would make a trade with the Red Wings if it wasn’t a crazy deal. Furthermore, because of their lack of depth, they don’t have the players or draft capital to get the Red Wings a proper return.