NHL Trade Grade: Ben Lovejoy gives Dallas Stars defensive stability

The Dallas Stars desperately needed defensive depth. They’ve acquired it from the New Jersey Devils in the form of defenseman Ben Lovejoy.

Coming into the NHL trade deadline, the Dallas Stars were kicking the tires on just about any rental option on the blueline. They needed defensive depth, especially after injuries to Marc Methot and Stephen Johns. On Saturday, the Stars announced they traded for New Jersey Devils defenseman Ben Lovejoy.

In exchange, Dallas is giving up a 2019 third-round pick and defenseman Connor Carrick. Lovejoy will be a free agent after this season and has a $2.66 million cap hit. After acquiring him, the Stars have just over $2 million of deadline cap space remaining. This leaves them with enough room to potentially pursue a forward who can help their offense.

Devils Perspective

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The Devils got a second-round pick for Brian Boyle earlier this month. Their deadline just got even better after getting a third-round pick for Lovejoy, who likely wasn’t returning after this season. HIs departure leaves a spot open on their blueline.

Carrick is at worst a depth defenseman and at best might be a keeper. He’s about as intriguing as middling defensemen get. Carrick’s proven he can play in the NHL, but he has had trouble staying healthy.

In 14 games this season with the Stars, he put up four points. Carrick has 34 points in 181 career games and is a restricted free agent after this season. Expect him to get a chance on the Devils this season and next season.

Grade: A. If you would have told me at the beginning of the year the Devils got a young defenseman and a third-round pick for Lovejoy, I’d have assumed you just escaped from the looney bin.

Stars Perspective

The Stars get one of the better rental blueline options available in Lovejoy. Though this probably says more about the weak rental market for defensemen than him. Anyway, the Stars needed to add a right-handed defenseman. After John Klingberg, their next best right-handed defenseman was Roman Polak. That’s never a good sign.

Lovejoy isn’t going to wow anyone and he doesn’t really excel in any particular part of his game. His zone exits are notoriously bad. However, this season, in a very small sample size, Lovejoy has done quite well at limiting zone entries against. His history shows he’s usually not good at that, however.

There weren’t many quality options available on the blueline. The Stars got one of the better ones available. Lovejoy is a pretty decent defensive defenseman, but Dallas already has a surplus of those. One has to wonder if the Stars lost out on Nick Jensen, who went to the Washington Capitals, and they panicked. His biggest impact will unquestionably come on the penalty kill. Lovejoy’s reputation there is quite high and deservedly so.

Grade: C+. Lovejoy is an alright defenseman, but he doesn’t begin to solve their issues on defense.