Welcome to the Future Five, a weekly column featuring five thoughts on the future of the New Jersey Devils franchise.

Last week we looked at a few different perspectives on the Devils’ draft capital, and some trade options to help the top-6.

This week, we’re looking at more trade options to improve both the top-6 and the defensive core, as well as a few notes from the recent NHL draft combine.

1. Kevin Labanc

In the last edition of the Future Five we took a look at a few different options to upgrade the top-6 through trade. Jason Zucker, Kasperi Kapanen, Ondrej Kase, and J.T. Miller are all good options that would provide an immediate upgrade to the top-6 RW, but there’s another option that merits some consideration.

Kevin Labanc is a RW/LW with the San Jose Sharks and is currently an RFA after completing his entry level contract. He is 23, stands 5”11’ tall, and is a right hand shot. During the 2018/19 season, Labanc scored 17 goals, and 39 assists for a total of 56 points in 82 games. His point totals have increased consistently over his first three seasons in the NHL, climbing from 20, to 40, and then 56 points.

I am not as high on Labanc as I am on some of the trade targets I outlined in my last article. However, there are several exciting trends we can see from his play throughout the past three seasons. First, he has a positive impact on his team’s possession when he is on the ice, and has averaged a 10.5 CF% in the past two seasons. He also seems to be fairly versatile, and moved between the third and second forward lines, and often played as the fourth forward on the Shark’s number one power play unit alongside Karlsson, Hertl, Pavelski, and Couture.

The Sharks themselves are a good trade target, although they don’t have a history of panic trades, or poor trades in general. They have $24 million in projected cap space for next season, and have to deal with a wide range of UFAs and RFAs

Notable UFAs:

Erik Karlsson (D) - they likely want to try and keep him, but he will cost in upwards of $10 million

Joonas Donskoi (F)

Joe Pavelski (F)

Joe Thornton (F)

Gustav Nyquist (F)

Notable RFAs:

Kevin Labanc (F)

Timo Meier (F) - the bigger impact forward between Labanc and Meier

Joakim Ryan (D)

The Shark’s cap situation isn’t as dire as some other teams around the league (Tampa, Winnipeg, Toronto), but it’s still bad. If Erik Karlsson decides to walk into free agency then the cap situation will become much simpler, limiting the amount of leverage the Devils will have on the Sharks in a trade.

Here’s how I see it - Labanc is a talented middle-6 forward who has the potential to move into the top-6 full time as soon as next season. He has averaged roughly 14 minutes a game, which is eerily similar to Palmieri’s deployment when the Devils traded for him in the summer of 2015. The problem is, with the benefit of hindsight, Palmieri was the more under the radar trade target. Labanc has already broken out to a degree that far surpasses Palmieri’s at the time of the trade:

Palmieri 2014/15: 14:06 TOI, 29 points including 10 ES goals

Labanc 2018/19: 14:01 TOI, 56 points including 15 ES goals

This means that the cost will likely be higher, should Labanc even be available.

Labanc shot 13% last season, which is up almost 3% from his career average. He also has a positive effect on possession when he is on the ice, but some of his micro-stats suggest that he isn’t an elite transition player. He falls into the same category as J.T. Miller where he doesn’t fall into any one archetype that hockey fans generally use (volume shooter, transition machine, wrecking ball). To me, the similarity in classification is so strong that I can’t help but compare the two. The unfortunate result is that when they’re compared, I simply prefer Miller, but only marginally.