It’s hard to believe that after all of the favorable and recent maneuvers made by Lou Lamoriello (finally convincing Brian Rolston to waive his no-trade clause and, even more remarkably, finding a team willing to relieve the Devils of his contract - thereby freeing up over $3 million in cap space for the 2011-2012 season; inviting Zach Parise to sit at the Devils’ draft table during this year’s draft; refusing to name a another captain after Jamie Langenbrunner was traded in January 2011) that the Devils and Parise have only agreed on a one year, $6,000,000 deal. While no other terms of the deal have been disclosed, based on the rules of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Parise is not free to sign another, longer extension until January 1, 2012 and remains eligible to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2012. Also, since one year deals are forbidden to contain a no-trade clause, this deal doesn’t contain one.

While this deal essentially just extends the negotiating period that the two sides have been in by avoiding the arbitration hearing which was scheduled for August 3rd, it’s still a disappointment for this Devils fan. After I got over my initial shock and letdown that no long-term deal was reached, I have to admit I became angry. And, no, not at Lamoriello…but at Parise (and his agent). Here’s why…

Realistically, the Devils have until the trade deadline in February to sign Parise to a long-term deal unless they risk the chance of him hitting free agency and bolting…leaving the Devils with nothing in return. If the trade deadline approaches and Parise still isn’t signed, I think the Devils will have no choice but to trade him as a rental to some other team (not unlike the way Ilya Kovalchuk was traded to the Devils in 2010) in order to ensure that they receive something of value in return for him. Otherwise, the risk that Parise could walk on July 1st is just too great. This deal also only works in the Devils’ favor if they are willing to negotiate with Parise during the regular season (something the Devils rarely do).

I understand that it’s the player’s right to hold out on signing any deal unless that player feels he is receiving the amount of money he thinks he deserves. And, regrettably, I wasn’t a fly on the wall during these negotiations, so I have no idea what was discussed. However, it’s obvious that Parise signed a contract with the shortest term possible – one that conveniently avoids an arbitrator determining what he is worth and one that carries him through this year until he attains UFA status. Let’s not forget that Parise was injured for the majority of the 2010-2011 season and underwent knee surgery. He hasn’t played enough since then for anyone to know if and how much that surgery has affected the quality of his skating or play. There’s a big question mark surrounding Parise after this past season, and this one year deal provides him with the opportunity to prove to the entire hockey world that his play hasn’t been negatively impacted by his surgery. To put it another way, it affords Parise the chance to “up” his value as far as the Devils and any other team is concerned. Because of the question mark surrounding Parise, one could argue that this one year deal also gives the Devils a chance to evaluate Parise. And that’s certainly true. But I really do not think, based on every indication provided by Lamoriello since the beginning of the summer, that the Devils wanted Parise to sign anything less than a long-term deal.

On July 19th, Tom Gulitti reported here that Parise was looking to see what kinds of deals Steven Stamkos and Brad Richads signed and then find comparables to try to receive a similar deal. That’s all good and great if Parise’s play and other intangibles are, in fact, comparable to those of Stamkos and Richards. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if that’s indeed the case. But despite the insistence of both sides that this one year deal is the best possible outcome right now for both parties, I nevertheless have a bad feeling about this as far as the Devils are concerned. Maybe it’s that the nightmarish memories of what happened with Scott Niedermayer and Scott Gomez are rearing their ugly heads, but unless a deal is reached by the trade deadline or Parise is traded for something of value, I really don’t see this ending well for the Devils.  I hope I'm wrong.

FUN FACT:

As mentioned above, the Devils rarely negotiate contracts with their players during the regular season. Two notable exceptions to this policy have been the contracts that were negotiated with Scott Stevens and Martin Brodeur.

I ran across Daniel DiTaranto's work on YouTube and I immediately sent him an email to ask if I could share this video with our readers. He does some great work and this is an outstanding video and really makes us wish that the calendar was changing into October and not August. Oh well, hockey will be here soon.

Mike “Doc” Emrick has been a staple in the Devils announcing booth for 21 years. You knew this day, the one where he had to change his workload, was going to come. The fact is, Mike Emrick is 65 years old and with the Devils and the Versus / NBC contracts, Emrick had been doing 110 to 120 games per season. Honestly, that is a lot of traveling and a lot of stress on one’s voice. I certainly understand why he chose to cut his workload down and I certainly understand why it was the Devils contract that he decided to not renew.

Mike Emrick is a class act, everyone knows that. In an interview with Devils reporter Tom Gulitti, he had nothing but wonderful things to say about the Devils organization and the fans. Did you know that Devils fans sent him letters and cards after his parents and his dogs passed away?  I don’t know a lot about fans of other teams but I can’t picture many doing that for their announcers.

Throughout the day on Thursday, many fans shared their favorite Doc Emrick moments on Twitter. Of course the moment most of us will remember is the call at the end of the 1995 Stanley Cup when he proudly announced “The Championship to New Jersey! The Devils win the Stanley Cup!” He, like the rest of us were just as proud of this team because he watched this team struggle and then grow into Champions. Mike Emrick has a passion for this game and it oozes over the microphone when he announces the game. He can’t help it, he just loves the game and as a Devils fan, I feel privileged that we got to hear him call our games for the past 18 years, 21 in total. I will certainly miss him and I can guarantee when the Devils get to play on NBC/Versus this season, I will certainly be tuning in just to hear Mike Emrick announce a Devils game again.

In an interview with Tom Gulitti, Emrick noted that before the last four games of the 2010-11 season, he had not done a meaningless Devils’ game since returning to announce for the Devils in 1993 because the only other time the Devils had missed the playoffs in the last 18 years, they weren’t eliminated from playoff contention until the last day of the 1995-96 season. That is a crazy statistic in my mind.
I close this out by saying Thank You Doc for all you’ve done over the last 18 years. It has been quite a ride and this organization and its fan will certainly miss you. You are one of a kind!!

On Tuesday, the Devils announced that Peter DeBoer had been hired as the new head coach of the New Jersey Devils. We share with you, our thoughts and analysis on the hiring of Peter DeBoer.

Darren's Thoughts and Analysis:

The Devils hired their coach this afternoon and it came in the form of a coach that has NHL experience. I do think they learned a valuable lesson from the MacLean last season. So what do we know about Peter DeBoer?  He recently spent 3 years coaching the Florida Panthers and was relieved of his duties as their head coach at the finish of the 2010/2011 season. DeBoer never led his Panthers to the playoffs, going 103-107-36 in that span but to be fair, the Panthers haven’t made it to the playoffs since 2000. However, each season saw his team decline and their record get progressively worse.

BUT, these are the Florida Panthers we are talking about. A team that consistently had a low-end roster.  He’s never had the benefit of coaching guys like Kovalchuk, Parise and Broduer at this level but has had success at the junior level. However, when you have a team that has talent on its roster, expectations come along with that talent and it will be interesting to see if DeBoer can deliver on those expectations.

We do know that that DeBoer coached David Clarkson and the Kitchner Rangers to the 2003 Memorial Cup so I would imagine this is a happy day for David Clarkson. He's also coached Mark Fraser and Travis Zajac at various points of their careers. I think that DeBoer is the type of coach that finds a happy medium of both offense and defense in his style, meaning we can’t categorize him as an offensive or defensive minded coach. Hiring DeBoers does make the Janssen signing last week an interesting one because with DeBoers here, I can’t believe that the Devils would look to move Clarkson, which is a rumor we’ve been hearing since Janssen signed. I’m guessing Janssen will probably find himself in Albany next season.

Deep inside I have to say I am a little surprised at the selection because we didn’t really see his name on the list until today. For me, the Devils appear to be in a “win now” mode and I am not sure that Peter DeBoer is a “win now” kind of coach but I could be wrong because I know so little of him. The bottom line for me is that I find it difficult to see what Jaques Lemaire accomplished last season and want anyone but Jaques Lemaire but I welcome Peter DeBoer to the NJ Devils and hope he is one great coach.

Debra's Thoughts and Analysis:

When I first heard today that the Devils hired Peter DeBoer as their new head coach, naturally, my initial
reaction was: “Who?”.

I honestly have to say that I’ve never heard of the guy before and certainly not in conjunction with
any rumors regarding who was being considered for the job. And this fact alone was a definite plus
in my eyes. I have to admit that none of the names that had been bandied about in the press as the
next possible coach made me very excited. The vast majority of them (Ken Hitchcock, Michel Therrien
and Craig MacTavish, to name a few) all seemed a little too “veteran”, in my opinion. Now, I have
no problem with veteran coaches. After what Jacques Lemaire did for the Devils last season, I thank
god every day that there exists at least a few good men out there with the wisdom and experience to
literally undo and clean up the messes left behind by the John MacLeans of the world. But considering
the fact that Lou Lamoriello stated that he was (once again) looking for a long term coach and that
many of the recently successful coaches in the league have been of the younger/edgier variety, I had
hoped that the Devils would choose a younger coach. One who would presumably be more inclined to
think outside the box and implement a system designed to compete effectively within the confines of
the “new” rules established in the post-lockout NHL era … (an era during which the Devils have had very
little postseason success thus far).

Of course when a team hires a non-veteran head coach, the chances increase significantly that the
team is getting an inexperienced head coach (a la John MacLean from last season’s debacle). So, I was
pleased once more to learn that DeBoer had been the head coach of the Florida Panthers for the past
three seasons. As a matter of fact, his very first season coaching in the NHL, he coached the Panthers to
93 points – the second most points in franchise history. I know what most people are probably thinking
… this is the Panthers that we’re talking about. Who cares if he coached them to the second most points
in their history? He didn’t coach them into the playoffs. Exactly. This is the Panthers that we’re talking
about – a team with very little talent and not much support fan-wise or money-wise. DeBoer actually
did a pretty decent job with what he had to work with. If he does a decent enough job with the talents
of Ilya Kovalchuk, Zach Parise, Martin Brodeur and Patrik Elias, he may just be the answer to all of our
prayers.

None of this matters at all, though, unless he can earn the respect of all of the players. As we are all too
familiar with from last season, you could have a plethora of talent, but if the coach can’t command the
locker room and communicate well, it could all go to waste. As was also demonstrated to us last year,
when one player is unhappy and plays poorly, the rest of the team can fall like dominos. It’s essential
for DeBoer to not only earn the respect of his players but to respect his players, as well. I really hope
that he can make and keep them happy because it doesn’t matter what we think of him. The only
opinions that matter are those of the guys on the ice.

The Devils news is once again a little slow. What is that term we like to throw around?? "Status Quo"... That’s pretty much where we are today. We are waiting to see if the Devils can work out a deal with Zach Parise prior to an arbitration hearing. If you recall, the Devils signed Travis Zajac to a 4 year deal on July 22 back in 2009, which happened to be two days before the two sides went before an arbitrator. Let's hope the same will be done with Zach Parise. The Devils took care of the other needs last week after Greene and Hedberg were signed once they hit the open market. We are also waiting on news that the Devils have hired the next head coach for this organization.

I'm not one that likes to report on rumors but right now it is all we have. Rumors came out yesterday stating that Guy Carbonneau could very well be the next coach. He fits most of the criteria for the Devils so it makes sense. He’s been a coach, he’s currently available to coach and he has spent time in the Montreal Canadiens' organization, which has been a coaching pipeline for the Devils. Since this rumor surfaced yesterday, Carbonneau has since come out and said he hadn’t heard anything from NJ about coaching the Devils but do coaches ever say “Yeah, I’m the guy” before the organization says “Yeah, he’s the guy?”. Craig Ramsey, whose name had been mentioned for the position was hired by the Florida Panthers yesterday, so he is off the list. Would Carbonneau  be a good fit in NJ. I’ll be honest, I certainly don’t want to type that name over and over so if he’s hired, I think we would need a good nickname for him.

The fact is he did a decent job while he was in Montreal.  Sure, he eventually got fired but all coaches get fired. Let’s remember that Montreal is a CRAZY hockey town, although Vancouver and their rioting after losing the cup knocks Montreal down to #2 on the craziest hockey cities in Canada at the moment and NJ is FAR LESS crazy so he could probably handle it here. I do question Guy’s (maybe I’ll just refer to him by first name) ability to control his players. During his time in Montreal, guys like Carey Price, Chris Higgins and Mike Komisarek certainly had their off ice issues but does NJ have anyone like that?. Can Guy bring out the best in a player like Kovalchuk because Kovalchuk certainly has a lot to prove to people? Alex Kovalev isn’t anything like Kovalchuk but he is a talented winger who was supposed to really help Montreal win a cup but never lived up to his potential while in Montreal. Like any coach, there are upsides to Guy Carbonneau, like his ability to run a PP and there are downsides to Guy Carbonneau. Hiring Guy Carbonneau wouldn’t be the worse move in the world, at least in my opinion it wouldn’t be.  Names like Therrien, Hitchock and Eaves are still being thrown around as well but right now, it appears that Carbonneau is the horse in the lead. What are your thoughts on Guy?

I don’t usually comment on the signings of other teams but I have to admit that I am a little surprised the St. Louis Blues not only signed Jason Arnott but Jamie Langenbrunner as well. Did they not pay attention to what the Devils accomplished last season? Truthfully, I was kind of hoping Arnott would come back to NJ and it’s the Langenbrunner signing that has me puzzled. For a guy who was named as the captain of the USA Olympic Hockey Team just less than 2 years ago, his game and attitude, I think have fallen really far. His interviews last season, while the team was tanking really bothered me but I suppose there is a place for everyone in this league and it is only a 1 year deal. The only puzzling part about Jason Arnott signing in St.Louis is that last season he only wanted to be traded from NJ to a contender and St.Louis only finished ahead of NJ by 6 points and missed the playoffs by 10 points and doesn’t really show any signs of being a team that will be drastically different next season. Why would he want to go there? If you were St. Louis, would you have signed them both?

As the initial “free agency frenzy”of 2011 comes to an end, it’s difficult, as a Devils fan, to forget how nerve racking last year’s free agency frenzy on July 1st (and the ensuing months) was. During free agency in 2010, the Devils were locked in an epic battle (first, against the Los Angeles Kings and then against the NHL, itself) for the league’s most coveted free agent to, arguably, ever become available on the free agent market in the prime of his career. That player was, of course, Ilya Kovalchuk, and the Devils pursued him in typical Devils fashion – stealthily and secretly – leaving us fans on the edges of our seats and constantly refreshing webpages for the latest updates.

This year’s first day of free agency has certainly been a quieter one for the Devils and their fans. The Devils only signed two players. Actually, they were “re”-signings, ensuring that both Andy Greene and Johan Hedberg will remain Devils. Defenseman Andy Greene signed a 4 year/$12 million deal, and back-up goaltender Johan Hedberg inked a 1 year deal (the financial terms of which have yet to be disclosed). Both players signed their deals after 12pm today, so they were able to talk to other teams as unrestricted free agents. Tom Gulitti of Fire & Ice (blogs.northjersey.com/fireice) reports that both Greene and Hedberg had a few offers from other teams and turned down more money to remain in New Jersey. It’s nice to know that these guys feel such a deep sense of loyalty to the Devils…but are their contracts worth it for the Devils?

I’ve already expressed my view of Hedberg’s deal in my earlier post from today, and I stand by it. As long as his salary isn’t ridiculously high, I feel that keeping Hedberg is a good thing for the Devils since there’s no doubt about his ability to back-up Brodeur. I would have much rather seen the Devils address their future goaltending issues by signing Brodeur’s successor, but since that didn’t happen, the signing of Hedberg for one more season is probably the next best thing.

The fact that Greene will be making $3 million/year for the next 4 years is a little more difficult for this fan to get her head around. His numbers from the 2010-2011 season don’t justify him receiving anywhere close to that, but to judge him on this past season (a season during which every Devil’s numbers were drastically lower than usual) isn’t exactly fair. Lou Lamoriello described Greene today as a top-four defenseman and chose the terms of his contract accordingly. Obviously, Lamoriello knows way more about these things than I do, but I would think that your top-four defenseman would be able to log a good number of minutes without sacrificing the quality of his play and maybe play on the power play once in a while. Greene’s numbers tend to decrease as his time on ice increases and vice-versa, and I don’t remember ever seeing him on the PP. We’ll find out soon enough if this contract was worth it…I just hope that Lamoriello didn’t make the mistake of granting him a no trade or no movement clause (a la so many other worthless contracts the Devils still have on their books).

So, the team’s roster hasn’t changed at all, really, from last year. The Devils’ 1st round draft pick, defenseman Adam Larsson, would be the only addition at this point…and that’s only if he makes the team. This leaves many fans scratching their heads. Is it wise to keep almost the same team as last season when that team didn’t make the playoffs?

Don’t worry…the Devils aren’t done. Lamoriello alluded to the fact that he will look to make a trade soon as long as he can dump salary to do so. One would have to think that this trade would be for the puck moving defenseman that the Devils so desperately need. And while this may be very close to the same team that missed the playoffs for the first time in 15 seasons this past year, it is also closer (no Jamie Langenbrunner) to the same team that had the best record in the second half of the season and almost pulled off the greatest comeback in professional sports history. So, while the players may be the same more or less, it’s the coach that will make or break this team. Who the Devils hire as their next head coach could mean more to this upcoming season and the future of this franchise than any single player they did or didn’t sign. Look for the announcement of who the next head coach will be within a week or two. Finally, the Devils will once again be signing the best free agent out there – Zach Parise. True, he’s not a UFA and, since the Devils filed for salary arbitration, there won’t be any other teams fighting the Devils for him, but it’s pretty much widely agreed upon that if Parise was a UFA, he’d be the most coveted one this year. While it’s guaranteed that Parise will be playing for the Devils next season, Lamoriello once again insisted today that signing Parise to a long-term deal remains his top priority. When that deal is announced, the Devils, for the second time in two years, will once again find themselves emerging from free agency triumphant.

FUN FACT:

As mentioned above and as a friendly reminder, the Devils were essentially stuck in a bidding war for Kovalchuk during last year’s free agency market with the Los Angeles Kings. This year, the Kings have once again immersed themselves into a bidding war with numerous teams for the equivalent of this year’s Kovalchuk – center Brad Richards. Richards spent his day with his agent in Canada holding court as his various suitors lined up outside the building awaiting their turn to be granted an audience with Richards and present their offers to him. The Kings were among the suitors, of course, and after emerging from their meeting with Richards, Tim Leiweke (President and CEO of AEG, the parent company of the Kings) had an interesting quote for the hordes of reporters gathered outside. When asked about the meeting with Richards, Leiweke said, “This is not Kovalchuk. He (Richards) is a very smart kid, with some very smart agents.” (Read the entire interview here). Yikes. So, he’s basically saying that both Kovy and his agent, Jay Grossman, are stupid. Why? Because they chose the contract that offered more money…or because they chose the more consistently successful team who has won three Cups in 8 years? Leiweke certainly wasn’t saying this about Kovy a year ago. Think that maybe the Kings are still bitter about losing Kovy to the Devils, by any chance?

On Monday afternoon, the Devils made qualifying offers to defensemen Matt Taormina, Matt Corrente, Mark Fraser, Maxim Noreau, Vladimir Zharkov, Steve Zalewski, Nathan Perkovich and Jeff Frazee. By doing so, the Devils prevented those restricted free agents from becoming unrestricted. Alexander Vasyunov was given a qualifying offer but has signed a one-year contract to play in his native Russia next season for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the KHL.

The news of the day wasn't really who they gave offers to, but more about who they didn't. Defenseman Anssi Salmela did not receive an offer from the Devils and is free to field offers from other teams in the league on Friday. Salmela, who returned to the Devils in the Kovalchuk trade, had seven points (one goal, six assists) in 48 games and was minus-11 last season.  Salmela has always been a kid I wanted to see succeed. He's been a part of the Devils two separate times and both tours with the club have been underwhelming which is probably why he didn't receive an offer yesterday. Lou did mention he would continue to talk with Salmela but when you look at the little amount he would have gotten had the Devils made him an offer, I would tend to believe there won’t be a lot of talking from the Devils.

Free Agency opens up on Friday but I would have to believe that the Devils will be very quiet.  They do need to sign someone to fill Hedberg’s spot,  although I am hoping that it is Hedberg that they sign and there is the unsigned Andy Greene that the Devils need to deal with.

I can't argue against what Lou Lamoriello has done for this organization. He's delivered 3 Stanley Cups, a lot of post-season appearences and some of the best players in the league but I really do question if he still has the gift. It's been close to two months since he said that the Devils would do “everything we possibly can as expeditious as possible” to re-sign Zach Parise but if by doing "everything" he meant "nothing" than Lou has been true to his word.

IF the Bruins can manage to get a win tonight, that would mean the deadline for filing for arbitration gets moved to 5pm on Friday, otherwise the deadline remains 5pm Wednesday. The last we heard from Lou about anything, we got the ol' "Status Quo" nonsense that we usually get. It appears the two sides aren't really talking about contracts, which means the Devils are probably going the team-elected arbitration route with Parise. That's a brilliant move that makes complete sense because the one thing you want to do with your young two-way superstar is really piss him off before you try to get him to sign a big contract at below market value.

I am frustrated with the way Lou does business over the last few summers. Two years ago, we didn't sign Lemaire until well after the draft and after the July 1st Free Agency Frenzy. I think it is important to have your coach in place by July 1st, this way free agents know who they are going to be playing for. Last summer we made a mistake in hiring John Maclean (but at least it was before July 1st!!) but lets be honest, none of us really saw that signing as a mistake until we saw the product on the ice. While I wasn't thrilled with the signing of Kovalchuk, not because of the player but because of the length and cost, at least Lou actually did something.

So far this summer, a summer which has been longer than most for Devils fans, there hasn't been any news on the Devils. No news about a new coach, which we can even take a step further and say the top candidates for the job appear to be interviewing elsewhere and not doing so in NJ. Parise looks to be headed to arbitration which certainly wasn't the correct route to take with Holik or Gomez and those two can't even hold Zach's jock strap, let alone come close to the importance that Zach plays in the future of this organization.

Before people jump on me about the knee issue with Parise, I get that might be point of concern for the Lou and company as is the Salary Cap but I just see this whole thing going horribly wrong. All I can see is taking Parise to arbitration, pissing him off by the things said during arbitration because a team can't go into an arbitration hearing and praise the guy, and then watching him take off as an UFA next summer. We've seen it happen before and it doesn't seem that we've learned from the past.

What are your thoughts? If the Devils do take Parise through the arbitration process, can he get over whatever is said and sign a long-term deal with NJ by the July 1, 2012 deadline?

With the 2011 off-season moving along at a snails pace (especially since there is still hockey to be played for other teams) I thought I would spend today looking at buyout options for the New Jersey Devils. It's no secret that the Devils have very litle room in their cap space and have a pretty important player to try and sign. That is, of course, unless the Devils go the arbitration route with Parise in an effort to buy more time to sign a long term deal.

The period in which a team can buyout the remaining part of a players contract for a reduced penalty is coming up. That period is from June 15 - June 30th (and of course again once a team is finished with all arbitrations but you can only buyout players that have gone through arbitration.)

So are there any Devils that I would buy out in order to create room? I believe there are but please keep in mind that buying out a player doesn't create an enormous amount of cap space and leaves a team trying to replace that player.

Colin White

Current Cap Hit: $3,000,000, 1 year remaining

Colin White is 33, not even close to being the physical defenseman that he once was and contributes nothing offensively to this team. When you're a defensive defenseman and your team is coming off a year in which they really struggled defensively, you can pretty much guarentee your name is coming up in this conversation. Not that I am a proponent of signing Andy Greene, but buying out Colin White would give the Devils the money to do so. A veteran presence on the blue line is important and I am for buying out Colin White if and only if Bryce Salvador is healthy enough to return to the Devils blue line. Alexander Urbom is young, physical defenseman that could give the Devils what they once had with Colin White.

David Clarkson

Current Cap Hit: $2,666,667, 2 seasons remaining

I'm tired of waiting for this guy to come around. Every year I think this could be the year of David Clarkson. I've thought that the best way for Clarkson to produce for this team is to play Randy McKay style hockey, camp out in front of the goalie and pound home rebounds but he doesn't do that often enough for me and more times that not, he disappears offensively. He contributes very little on the power play and isn't very good on the defensive side of the puck. The one thing David Clarkson is good at, is throwing fists. He has led the Devils in Major Penalties since his arrival in 2007 and I certainly don't want to downplay the importance of fighters in the NHL but it isn't enough for me. The problem is, when David Clarkson shows up at the rink to play and bang bodies around and help his team win, he does a very good job at it but he doesn't do it consistantly enough to warrant such a large contract, therefore he has to go.

Dainius Zubrus

Current Cap Hit: $3,400,000, 2 seasons remaining

This is one I go back and forth on all the time. The truth is, Zuburs was never a guy that was going to light the lamp as much as his contract dictates that he should. I never really understood why so much money was thrown at a guy thats a 15/20 goal scorer and 25/30 assist man. If there is anything that Zubrus brings to the table, it would be his size but while I wish he threw more open ice body checks, he's fantastic at using his size against the boards to battle for puck possesion. He is certainly one of the better faceoff guys on the team.

I honestly only listed him here because he has buyout potential. I'm not sure I am willing to pay the cost of the buyout vs just keeping him on the team and using the few things he does well for us. As for White and Clarkson, I am sold on getting them off of our team. If the Devils could trade Clarkson, I believe they should but I don't think the trade value for him is very high and even less so for White and Zubrus. The real problem with buying out anyone is that the cap benefit is really minimal but when it comes to signing Parise, maybe that extra $1 million in cap room with make a differance.

What do you think?

I recently sat down one morning to eat my bowl of cereal for breakfast and picked up the sports section of the Star Ledger and right there, front and center was an article about a Devils goalie prospect. I actually wondered why so much was being made, and has been made about what will happen with this team once Marty decides to hang them up. Brodeur is 39 and entering the final year in his contract. Of course there are many questions that need to be answered but I ask you, why do the Devils have to replace Marty with a guy that has been brought up through the Devils organization? Why can't we just find a guy on the UFA market to fill our goaltending needs? Wasn't Hedberg hands down the best thing that happened to us last summer?

Of the teams still playing in the NHL Playoffs, only 2 of those teams are using goalies that have been groomed by the organization. You could even argue that Tim Thomas isn't really a guy that has been groomed by the Bruins organization as he was drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in 1994, and spent a lot time playing in Europe before making his NHL debut with the Bruins during the 2002–03 season. Dwayne Roloson has spent time with A LOT of clubs over his long NHL Career. Antti Niemi made his rise in the NHL as the goalie that deliverd for the city of Chicago last season but during the offseason, Chicago had to walk away from Niemi because of salary cap restraints. Truthfully, Niemi really got his start in the SM-liiga as he spent 3 years there before signing with Chicago. Jimmy Howard has been the exception of the bunch, having been drafted by the Wings in 2003 and getting the occasional call up to the NHL starting in the 2005–06 season. During the 2010-11 season, Howard signed a 2-year contract extension with the Red Wings worth $2.25 million per season, so it would appear he is going to stay in Detroit for a while.

So Where am I going with this? Why does it appear that the Devils are so worried about finding a goalie that can be groomed from within the organization to take the place of Marty Brodeur once he's ready to leave the ice? Jeff Frazee has been in Albany for what seems like years now and appears that he won't ever be ready for the NHL. McKenna has been called up a few times but I'm not sure he's the right guy either. Looking at the year Marty becomes a UFA, goalies like Rinne, Mason, and Huet will also be joining him (although it is unlikely Nashville would let Rinne ever get away.)

Maybe the Devils organization should get away from the thinking that they need a guy who has paid his dues to the organization as a replacement for Marty. Look at the Sharks, for years they relied on their guy, Evgeni Nabokov but cut him loose last summer to go get Niemi and the Sharks are putting together a decent run, all be it they've allowed Detroit to climb out of a 3-0 hole.

I understand that NJ has to start thinking about life without #30 between the pipes, I just want them to realize that there are good stop gap goalies out there until the next franchise goalie comes along. And hey, you never know, one of those stop gap goalies could end up being the next franchise goalie.

So what are your thoughts? Should we be worried about replacing with Broduer from within or should we not worry to much about it because there is bound to be someone out there that can do what we need a goalie to do?