While the New Jersey Devils have a fairly blank canvas to paint with for salaries between now and the presumed expansion draft, that doesn't mean they don't have some tough choices to make.

(My criteria are here, and most of my information is from capfriendly.com and hockeydb.com)

So the good news is they're not overly committed yet, the key word being yet:

Forwards: Blake Coleman, Travis Zajac, Kyle Palmieri

Defensemen/Defencemen: Damon Severson

Goalies: Cory Schneider

Almost twenty million dollars of cap space is nothing to sneeze at, but it has some obvious caveats: Taylor Hall's Hart Trophy this season isn't going to make him any cheaper to re-sign between now and then. And if only Severson is under contract two years from now, then Will Butcher and Micro Mueller (among others) are going to need newer (and presumably more lucrative) deals. And that's without even mentioning other young core players like Nico Hischier and Pavel Zacha.

So looking at the five guys we've named above: Zajac and Schneider have No Trade Clauses and Palmieri has a modified one. Coleman may or may not have some such language in his contract and the other two have nothing of that nature. Zajac and Schneider are also both over 30 already, for what that's worth.

Working under the assumption that age would work against Jersey (or most teams, of course) keeping a player, that does tend to make me think it's probably one or the other of Zajac or Schneider. In which case, I'm going with:

Travis Zajac (Center/Centre)

Why New Jersey Would Make Him Available: Unless he were willing to take a deep pay cut, I can't imagine Jersey would want to pay him over four million dollars a year at the age of thirty-five. And with the aforementioned Hall, Zacha and Hischier down the middle (to say nothing of whoever the top prospects they might have in the minors or even keeping Marcus Johansson) it's not like Zajac would be an irreparable loss were he to move on.

Why Seattle Would Want To Select Him: He could be a useful chip to cash in at the trade deadline if so desired. A contract that looks onerous now ($5.75 million over the next three seasons) would be much more manageable in the latter portions of the 2020/2021 season. To say nothing of being useful to start off above the cap floor for Seattle.

Having scored 45 points as recently as the 2016/2017 season, he could certainly provide some scoring in the bottom-six part of the roster. Nothing overwhelming, but certainly worth perhaps some second-team power play time.

As a former alternate captain for Canada in international competitions as well as being a current alternate captain for the Devils, he would potentially be a strong leadership voice in a new locker room that would presumably benefit from such experience.

To be honest, I thought he was younger than he is. That said, a veteran presence like Zajac could be just what Seattle is looking for.