Luke Evangelista was traded to the New Jersey Devils by the Nashville Predators on Tuesday.
The Predators received a conditional first-round pick and a second-round selection in the 2028 NHL Draft. New Jersey previously received the conditional first-round pick from the Calgary Flames in the deal for defenseman Simon Nemec on June 23.
Evangelista had an NHL career-high 56 points (12 goals, 44 assists) in 81 games for the Predators last season.
The 24-year-old forward is entering the second season of a two-year, $6 million contract ($3 million average annual value) he signed with Nashville on Oct. 4, 2025. He can become a restricted free agent after this season.
"Anytime you trade a good player that's got a lot of cachet and been a part of an organization for a few years, and is a dang good person that's done a good job here and played good hockey for the Preds for the last number of years, it’s just the tough part of the business," Predators general manager Chris MacFarland said. "We wish Luke the very, very best as he embarks on a new journey for himself with the Devils."
MacFarland said the composition of Nashville's roster played a role in the decision to make the trade, despite Evangelista's age and production last season.
"We felt with the depth of the winger market and the depth of our winger prospects, we feel we’re very forward heavy," MacFarland said. "We have a lot of good young wingers that are going to wear our colors over the next few years and I think one of the challenges we ran into this summer in trying to improve other positional silos was we just didn't have the right mix of darts to throw, and I think that that was certainly a part of the rationale. We think Luke is a good player, he's a proven player, but we're very happy with the return.
"... It’s not so much the story of Luke Evangelista, we have a lot of right-handed shots. We have (Filip) Forsberg and (Steven) Stamkos and 'Marchy' (Jonathan Marchessault), Matthew Wood and (Mavrik) Bourque, and I think the pieces for us as a management group, it’s that next layer that we expect at some point to filter into that top nine. Whether we’re talking about Brady Martin or Egor Surin, Cole O’Hara, guys that have been in the Preds reserve list for a few years and have been developing. ... We felt pretty strong that our winger position could absorb this and we’re excited about what the potential capital might be able to do for the lineup at some point."
MacFarland said the acquisition of the two draft picks will give the Predators valuable roster flexibility.
"We certainly don’t have another deal lined up to announce after today," he said, "but what I do think it’s given us is a bullet in the holster that we didn’t have yesterday that we can potentially now be involved on, whether it’s next week, two months from now or three months from now.
"Our goal is to try and build something to have some sustained success and right now we think while the roster is improved, it’s still got a long way to go in certain silos for us to get it going to where we want it to get to. I think this arms up with a draft pick high in the draft that is going to be potentially attractive in a lot of different ways. But when that will be we don’t know. Obviously high picks, first and second-round picks are liquid, and we’ll be curious to see how that looks like in whatever amount of time that is."
Selected by Nashville in the second round (No. 42) of the 2020 NHL Draft, Evangelista has 142 points (45 goals, 97 assists) in 253 regular-season games, and one goal in six Stanley Cup Playoff games.
NHL.com staff writer Derek Van Diest contributed to this report
