The New Jersey Devils clearly want to trade Dougie Hamilton.

Any rumors list or trading analysis you can find includes Hamilton’s name. The still-reliable defenseman would be of more use to a contender at this point than to the Devils.

The main problem is Hamilton’s contract. He carries a $9 million cap hit. 

Not just for this season, either. It runs through 2027-28.

Can anyone actually trade for that? That’s the question Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin asks.

He has Hamilton second on his trade big board, in the tier of players most likely to be traded, behind just sure-to-go Rangers winger Artemi Panarin.

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Despite that placement, Larkin also acknowledges a Hamilton deal won’t be an easy one to pull off.

“He’ll always have his knuckle-draggin’ haters as a player with lackadaisical body language, and his scoring has evaporated this year, but he’s perennially a strong play-driving defenseman,” Larkin writes. “Not that he’s on this board for his perceived external trade value per se; it’s more that the Devils would like to offload his hefty cap hit to clear space. Hamilton’s camp has expressed a willingness to expand his 10-team trade list in hopes of finding him a new home, so a trade feels inevitable, albeit it won’t be the easiest to work out given his AAV. The playoff salary cap and double-salary-retention crackdown will make pricier players harder to move at the deadline this year.”

Plenty of teams could use a defenseman like Hamilton in a vacuum.

Would those same teams be able to handle the contract, or figure out a way with the Devils to make the money work? That’s a bigger concern.

It’ll make Hamilton one of those guys who might linger a bit longer, right up until the deadline, because teams will have to get everything in order to actually be able to fit Hamilton on their roster.

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