So the Devils appear flush with cap space for 2020-21 even after assuming P.K. Subban’s full $9 million hit, which is a good thing because they are going to need it in order to keep Taylor Hall in New Jersey beyond this season.

For if Artemi Panarin, an elite talent, was able to attract a $96M offer from Columbus over eight years ($12M per season) and another from the Islanders for $87.5M over seven years ($12.5M per) before accepting the Rangers’ bid of $81.5M over seven years ($11.642M per) in a self-imposed limited field, then what do you suppose awaits Hall — the 2017-18 Hart Trophy winner, who could be expected to open up the proceedings to anyone with a good chance to win?

You begin at $13M per and watch the bidding escalate for this dynamic, difference-making winger — who will turn 28 on Nov. 14, 15 days after Panarin blows out the same number of candles on his birthday cake. That’s where you begin right now if you are Devils general manager Ray Shero, who would be taking a John Tavares-sized risk (or is that Garth Snow-sized?) in allowing No. 9 to play out the season without an extension.

There is risk attached to Hall’s side as well, given the knee issues that limited him to 33 games while ruining his and his team’s 2018-19. It was the second time in Hall’s three years as a Devil that he incurred knee problems. A third occurrence would certainly put a damper on his coming-out party. So there is ample reason for both parties to reach an agreement on an extension before the first puck drops at training camp.

If, that is, Hall wants to stay.

The Subban trade, Slap Shots has been told, was every bit as much ownership-driven as management-propelled. The addition of both the Spirit of ’76 and first-overall draft selection Jack Hughes has provided the Devils with star power and marquee attractions craved by Josh Harris and David Blitzer. But Hall carries the twig that stirs the drink in New Jersey.

The player and the GM have both said appropriately respectful things about the process. Shero has been deferential. But as the summer heats up, so must the conversation. There is too much at stake here for the Devils to allow this to remain unresolved into camp. The countdown on Hall begins now, just as surely as the count-up to the $13 million a year that will make him the highest paid player in the NHL.

There appears to no logical explanation for the breakdown in talks between the Islanders and Robin Lehner, nor sufficient reasoning to clarify why GM Lou Lamoriello preferred giving four years at $5M per to an erratic, 31-year-old Semyon Varlamov than two years at, well, seemingly anything to the nearly 28-year-old Lehner.

There is belief throughout the industry, though without verifiable underlying evidence because of Lamoriello’s unique ability to keep things in house, that something personal must have happened between the boss and the goaltender in the course of the talks. That theory has life to it because the hockey part of the decision does not make the slightest bit of sense.

In the end, Lamoriello almost made it sound as if the Islanders decided to throw an extra two years on Varlamov’s contract so he could be a mentor for the promising Ilya Sorokin, a third-round 2014 draft selection who has one more year remaining on his KHL contract.

But $10M for that? Kind of crazy, no?

The Blue Jackets not only kept pending free agents Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky at the deadline rather than trading them as rentals, but traded for rentals Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel, and saw them all walk for nothing on July 1. Dzingel, though, had not signed anywhere as of Saturday morning and is probably carrying some red flags on his resume given Columbus didn’t even make an attempt to keep the winger.

The Islanders, meanwhile, gambled at the deadline on keeping pending free agents Lehner, Anders Lee, Brock Nelson and Jordan Eberle, and kept them all except for the goaltender, and that at management’s own discretion.

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By the way? The $600,000 in cap space the Rangers cleared as a result of Vancouver’s buyout of Ryan Spooner represented the difference in the team being able to sign Panarin or not. Because without that $600,000, the Blueshirts were prepared to stick on their offer of $11M per, industry sources confirm.

see also

NHL free agency 2019 winners and losers

Some of these moves were easy to predict long in…

The collective bargaining agreement rule on buyouts of traded players with salary/cap retention and on cap-recapture penalties for traded players who retire are asinine. Who thinks it’s a good idea to penalize or reward teams for independent decisions made by third and fourth parties? Well, apparently the NHL and NHLPA.

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We’re told the moves by Minnesota in signing Mats Zuccarello to a five year deal and by Dallas in adding Joe Pavelski and Corey Perry were influenced by consistent pressure on management by ownership in both precincts. In Minnesota, after only one year on the job, GM Paul Fenton is under extreme scrutiny.

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Proof that cap-jail isn’t exactly Alcatraz is provided every day by the Maple Leafs, who have somehow been able to not only keep the players they’ve wanted to keep but also to add reinforcements.

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So, Neil Smith reviled for his front-loaded offer sheet to Joe Sakic in 1997 and Marc Bergevin is ridiculed for his front-loaded try on Sebastien Aho 22 years later and everyone wonders why aren’t there more of them?

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Finally, it was a fine gesture indeed for the Devils’ owners to provide their private jet to Hughes so he wouldn’t have to fly commercial to New Jersey from Vancouver following the draft. But then what were Martin Brodeur and John Hynes doing on the red-eye, and how come images of them disembarking from their flight weren’t all over Devils’ social media, also?