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Zajac sign Long Term Deal


Colin226

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if you look at it that way... but then when you see guys like Getzlaf, Ryan, Carter, Richards, Doan, Hossa, St-Louis, etc etc going for the same thing or less well......

a really good comparison to Zajac IMO is Mikko Koivu in what he brings offensively and defensively... based on that we got a huge deal lol Koivu at 6.7m is crazy

Richards & Hossa I wouldn't put in there since they're on the crazy long term deals that deflate the $ but I see your point. But he probably would've gotten Koivu $ on the open market

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I love, love this deal. I think the cap hit is great for the Devils and its fantastic they got him to go the maximum amount of years. I think he would've gotten more money per year on the open market. I see a lot of people online bashing this deal as an overpay but its clear they don't watch the Devils regularly.

At least now after this season the Devils only have to worry about re-signing 3 forwards now (Elias, Zubrus, Clarkson). I'm not worried about the Devils budget for when Josefson and Henrique hit FA, their is so much that can and will probably change in the next 2-3 years that will really make an impact on that.

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I love, love this deal. I think the cap hit is great for the Devils and its fantastic they got him to go the maximum amount of years. I think he would've gotten more money per year on the open market. I see a lot of people online bashing this deal as an overpay but its clear they don't watch the Devils regularly.

At least now after this season the Devils only have to worry about re-signing 3 forwards now (Elias, Zubrus, Clarkson). I'm not worried about the Devils budget for when Josefson and Henrique hit FA, their is so much that can and will probably change in the next 2-3 years that will really make an impact on that.

He could have gotten more money per year, but with the contract limits, someone would have had to offer him close to $7 million over 7 years (the max Winnipeg or any other team could offer length-wise) per to match our 8-46 in terms of total compensation. It's a win-win for both player and team, really Travis wasn't going to do any better in FA with the current landscape - especially with so many teams scaling back payroll next year - and we couldn't afford to have to replace him.

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Well whether Lou signs these players is one thing, but I think a lot of it has to do with his methods. Even when other teams re-sign with their players on or about July 1st, it usually follows with a statement how they have been working on the deal for months. With Lou you always hear players saying " I never heard anything about it until the season ended." Then Lou has to figure out this stuff in about 1-3 months along with the draft. This seemingly perception of Lou doing nothing until the last minute is is totally based on feeling and perception than anything concrete given how little Lou talks about what he is doing internally.

But stepping back and looking at all this on a level field, the only two players that the Devils lost in the last 4-5 years that were of any big relevence were Zach following by Gionta. I might be missing a player or two but me forgetting just shows how much I miss them.

To be fair, Zach purposely only signed for one year because his agents KNEW the kind of money he'd get on the open market. He planned to hit UFA no matter what. And there were rumors that they had discussed an extension in January of last year, and his agents put the kibosh on it. Lou is incredibly secretive, so we definitely aren't getting the inside news that a lot of other teams leak.

If you don't think his routine of waiting until 7/1 to resign our own guys has cost us players....I don't know what to tell you.

If you think he just sits and waits until 7/1, I don't know what to tell you.

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I personally think this is a great deal. Maybe he is getting paid more than he should, but I think he wud have gotten over 6 million had he gone to free agency. There is a lot about Zajac that makes him so valuable to the devils that some people might not notice. To merge two biggest things are that he has chemistry with kovy. It was very hard to find a good fit for kovy. And second Zajac has shown that he is pretty clutch. I would say more so than a lot of players on the team. I can think of 2 playoff overtime winners and 2 extra round shootouts winners in big games off of the top of my head. Add that to the fact that he is our number one center who can play in any situation and I think 5.75 is a fair number.

Agreed. A lot of his intangibles boost his value, and well, we also can't afford to lose another top 6 forward. So I like the deal. A little pricey but so what.

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Love this deal, I don't think it's overpaying but wouldn't care if it is. I also love his quote after:

“It’s something I take pride in,” the 27-year-old center said. “I love wearing this logo on my chest. It means a lot to me.

Maybe not this year, but I think it's a done deal that he will wear the 'C' in the near future. Great job by Lou.

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He could have gotten more money per year, but with the contract limits, someone would have had to offer him close to $7 million over 7 years (the max Winnipeg or any other team could offer length-wise) per to match our 8-46 in terms of total compensation. It's a win-win for both player and team, really Travis wasn't going to do any better in FA with the current landscape - especially with so many teams scaling back payroll next year - and we couldn't afford to have to replace him.

I don't agree. Travis's money is backloaded, which time value of money wise isn't great - I know people are saying they think escrow will be high next year + that there will be a revenue shortfall in relation to where next year's cap is set, but I doubt that compensates for the heavy backloading. Furthermore, we don't know what kind of offers he would get - I wouldn't be surprised if 7-46 type offers were out there. There are always teams that are weak down the center and guys like Zajac make it to UFA infrequently.

Now if he gets injured or has a bad season this calculus changes considerably but Zajac will be getting 20-22 minutes a night this year.

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Love this deal, I don't think it's overpaying but wouldn't care if it is. I also love his quote after:

Maybe not this year, but I think it's a done deal that he will wear the 'C' in the near future. Great job by Lou.

Travis is definitely in line to get the C in the near future. He stepped up and showed great leadership in between the trade of Langs and return of Parise in 10-11.

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Love hearing stuff like this.

“It’s something I take pride in,” the 27-year-old center said. “I love wearing this logo on my chest. It means a lot to me. The environment that (GM)Lou (Lamoriello) has created here, it’s a winning culture and I want to continue to be part of that and continue to help out in any way possible.”
Edited by Zubie#8
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I think it is more of people are pissed that Lou seemingly waits till the last second to start negotiating with these guys instead of resigning them in advance like you see a lot of other teams do. If news would have gotten out that Lou was negotiating with Zach all of last year before losing him to the Wild, I think the sting would have been less and it would be easier to accept that Lou tried his best and Zach just wasn't interested or got a better offer.

Just the fact that Lou signed someone this far in advance of the expiration of his current contract is bewildering and a little refreshing even if the numbers are a tad steep.

Happy Zajac is going to be here a long time though.

What failing principle?! God, some of you act like Lou just constantly loses guys left and right. It happens! All GMs lose players! In case you haven't noticed, he's kept some guys too, but no one ever talks about that. Only the guys who walk. And quite a few of the ones who did leave didn't exactly pan out for their new teams.

Yep I simply meant the failing principle that you can only negotiate with free agents after the season is over. It's been a mixed bag of results but no matter the results, I believe it has been a negative for Lou. Guys like Niedermayer, Rafalski, Parise had reasons to leave, of course, but if they had simply been re-signed earlier along we may not have ever seen those issues come to rise.

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Yep I simply meant the failing principle that you can only negotiate with free agents after the season is over. It's been a mixed bag of results but no matter the results, I believe it has been a negative for Lou. Guys like Niedermayer, Rafalski, Parise had reasons to leave, of course, but if they had simply been re-signed earlier along we may not have ever seen those issues come to rise.

We'll never truly knows what goes on behind the scenes with Lou, especially because he's as secretive as it gets, but I don't think it's as simple as you make it out to be, that it would've been so easy for Lou to re-sign these guys earlier. Those guys all knew big money awaited them once they hit UFA. They also know that Lou is usually not one to dole out insane mega-deals (though Kovy was clearly the major exception to that rule, and Elias' deal was up there for the time).

I'm not sure exactly what happened with Parise...I have no idea how close they were before talks broke down (before the start of last season). I do know that 13 years and $98 million for him is silly. I liked Parise a lot (what Devil fan didn't?), but with the type of game he plays and his size, can't help but wonder how long he'll hold up. I don't like those insane long-term deals as it is (including Kovy's), but I probably would've been comfortable giving Zach 7 years, tops.

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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Not at all. Zajac plays a more important position and is another top line forward. Losing two top liners in two years would be disastrous. Parise can be replaced from within by collective effort. Zajac, not so much. It's no surprise the Devils were an average regular season team last year and shot up late last season to the Cup with the return of Zajac

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Not at all. Zajac plays a more important position and is another top line forward. Losing two top liners in two years would be disastrous. Parise can be replaced from within by collective effort. Zajac, not so much. It's no surprise the Devils were an average regular season team last year and shot up late last season to the Cup with the return of Zajac

+1

Plus how do people not realize that Zajac is WAY more clutch than Parise. Seriously, if you look at the playoffs I can think of several instances were Zajac has come through in clutch situations. Parise on the other hand not so much. And I know for the majority of Zach's tenure here he was lights out in the shootout. But this past year whenever he could win the game he would miss. Zajac on the other hand, he always gets put in shootout when its in extra rounds and I really cant think of him missing any of them. Im sure he has missed 1 or 2 in extra rounds but I can only remember him coming up big in big games in the shootout.

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Not at all. Zajac plays a more important position and is another top line forward. Losing two top liners in two years would be disastrous. Parise can be replaced from within by collective effort. Zajac, not so much. It's no surprise the Devils were an average regular season team last year and shot up late last season to the Cup with the return of Zajac

That's still very much to be determined. Wishful thinking almost. The Devils did pretty damn good with Zajac out almost the entire season. I don't think having Zajac gone cost the Devils more than a couple of wins.

I will agree that losing both Parise and Zajac would be disastrous.

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i just find that people are trying to convince themselves that Zach was not that good or that we don't need him. But deep inside we all know we lost a big piece... he was the heart of the team, probably the best in the league to score off deflections and around the net and he was a top player.

Zajac is really good and underated but come on now lol it's a case of overestimating/hyping your own team and devaluating whats not. Its typical but you know. No other fanbase would have been saying all season long "Can wait for july 1st to snag Zajac !"

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i just find that people are trying to convince themselves that Zach was not that good or that we don't need him. But deep inside we all know we lost a big piece... he was the heart of the team, probably the best in the league to score off deflections and around the net and he was a top player.

Zajac is really good and underated but come on now lol it's a case of overestimating/hyping your own team and devaluating whats not. Its typical but you know. No other fanbase would have been saying all season long "Can wait for july 1st to snag Zajac !"

Because fanbases have no idea about players on other teams besides the stars. It's very easy to look at someone like Zajac and think that he's not very good, but when healthy he's one of the top defensive centers in the league.

I'd rather have Zajac on this deal than Parise on his deal and I'm not even factoring in the cap recapture thing that's going to happen to Parise at the end of that deal. I forget what it's claimed the Devils offered Parise, but I'd still rather have Zajac on this one than Parise on that one. And while you might say 'they could have both', well the idea of 3 people signed until 2020 is pretty terrifying to me.

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i just find that people are trying to convince themselves that Zach was not that good or that we don't need him. But deep inside we all know we lost a big piece... he was the heart of the team, probably the best in the league to score off deflections and around the net and he was a top player.

Zajac is really good and underated but come on now lol it's a case of overestimating/hyping your own team and devaluating whats not. Its typical but you know. No other fanbase would have been saying all season long "Can wait for july 1st to snag Zajac !"

Teams like Toronto/whoever else that has a center problem would kill for someone like Zajac even if their dumb fans don't realize how good he is. If Parise just puts up the numbers he did last year, Zajac can easily be just as good

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