Devils 2025 Trade Targets: Rickard Rakell

Rickard Rakell is an underrated top-6 winger, but should the New Jersey Devils use their top assets to acquire him?

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Two weeks from today marks the NHL trade deadline. One has to assume the New Jersey Devils will be active, especially to bolster their forward group. Even with Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt in the lineup, they're essentially a one-line team.

Those players need help, and one player they could target is Rickard Rakell, who is No. 2 on The Athletic's most recent trade board. Rakell is having a fantastic season and would not be a rental, but does he make sense for the Devils?

Rakell Is Better Than You May Realize

Rakell has spent the past three seasons (this one included) with the Pittsburgh Penguins and has been one of their more reliable scorers. He finished with 28 goals and 60 points in 2022-23, though that production dipped due to some poor shooting luck the following season.

This season, Rakell is having all the shooting luck. He has 25 goals and 48 points in 56 games — a 37-goal, 70-point pace over 82 games. He's shooting 17.1 percent, which is about 5.5 percent above his career average.

Rakell's 37-goal pace is certainly an outlier compared to his career averages. He totaled 33 and 34 goals in back-to-back years in 2016-17 and 2017-18 but hadn't come close to those numbers until this season.

That might be a red flag, but Rakell isn't the typical "shooting percentage covers up flawed player." Most of his underlying metrics have been excellent on a mediocre Penguins team.

Rakell has an expected goals share (xG%) of 54.25 percent, one of the top numbers among Penguins skaters. Granted, his numbers don't look great away from Sidney Crosby; he has a 44.9 xG% away from Crosby. But how many players' numbers will look great away from Crosby on that Penguins team?

If you expand Rakell's data to include numbers from the start of the 2022-23 season, you can see he's provided plenty of positive two-way value:

Even though Rakell is on pace to record a career-high 37 goals, regression for him probably looks closer to 25-30 goals. He shot 11.5 percent in 2022-23 when he totaled 28 goals, right on par with his career shooting percentage of 11.5 percent.

Rakell is a good fit for the Devils despite some concerns about the shooting bump. There's a reason Sweden added him to their 4 Nations roster after William Karlsson got injured. He's an excellent player. He'd probably have no problem sliding in on a line with Hischier or Hughes.