Friday, August 25, 2017

Fringe Signings (Aug 25)

The New Jersey Devils announced on Friday afternoon that they had signed unrestricted free agent forward Drew Stafford to a 1-year, $800,000 deal.

The 31-year old spent the 2017 season between the Winnipeg Jets and Boston Bruins, playing in 58 games, scoring 8 goals and registering 21 points, ranking him 258th among all forwards in scoring for the year.  Expectations were certainly higher for the winger, who has been mired with inconsistency in his career, which has seen him move around quite a bit in recent years.  It also didn't help that injuries caught up to the winger last season, missing 24 games to a lower-body injury, an upper-body and a bout of the flu.

The Devils should offer him a reasonable opportunity to get his game back to pool worthy levels, but it's pretty tough to see where he'll fit in right off the hop, so the early projections I have for him are at the 30-point level, but there's certainly some upside with more ice-time.

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