2873 replies to this topic

[grcenter47]

I can't see how anyone is surprised by this. Zach did not hire new agents last July because he was staying. Buying a new home in Minnesota in the past year was more evidence.

I don't disrespect Zach for this. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

That being said, I think Minny made a terrible mistake today. This contract has Scott Gomez times 13 years all over it. Suter is nothing without Weber. This is Wade Redden times 13 years.

Even with these signings they are still a borderline playoff team. It will interesting to see how Lou plays his hand now.

what moves would you make?

[capo]

I dont think all of those names are very fair to include.

Nieds is obvious. Gionta, everyone expected to walk when it was his time. Martin, nobody wanted to give him the contract that he got + in hindsight, its a good thing we didnt keep him. Gomez was walking regardless. Holik I dont even remember the circumstances.

I agree we've lost a lot of high-profile free agents, but there were extenuating circumstances with lots of the guys we've lost. IMO the ones that sting the most and possibly could've been handled better are Nieds and Parise. I don't even think there was a way to save Nieds other than bringing over Rob. Burke knew this was a selling point to Scotty and refused Lou's proposals for Rob a few times.

Of the three Holik, Gionta, Gomez, Holik was the one Lou played the hardest for and lost out because of the money. Gomez was never offered a contract and Gionta went to the highest bidder where Lou had a max he was going to give him.

[Devs1965]

I was right there with you until the last sentence. Kovachuk, Salvador, Ponikarovsky and Zidlicky were all great trades. My issue is with free agency. Hes been guilty of overpaying both existing players and marginal unrestricted free agents. regardless of the circumstances, off the top of my head I can't think of another GM that has lost two captains and two talents the quality of Niedermayer and Parise in the last 10 years. The reports you hear from free agents saying they've not even heard from LL can be maddening.

Nieds was a capt for more than one year and did not shove crap about being a team guy, it's not about the money and how much respect he had for the captaincy. I do agree about LL, but still do not respect or consider ZP a captain or ex capt he never deserved that C.

[NJDevs4978]

Let's be realistic, he got near max for the first two years of his deal and $94M over 10 years. How much extra money could he possibly have gotten? He only gets $4M less than Crosby over the first 10 years of HIS new contract. This is the stuff where he can dig himself a big hole because it's just total bullsh!t.

Yeah, the only team he could have gotten more money from is the Wild, maybe the Flyers but we don't know what their offer really was. But the Wild needed to give Suter as much of a payday to entice him from coming over, so instead of offering Zach 105-110 as was reported they give them both 98, bfd.

http://devils.nhl.com/club/roster.htm

Eric Boulton and Petr Sykora are still on the roster though

[NJDevs4978]

i do not agree because by that time, there was simply no reason for parise to accept any contract. while i still believe the 7/50 story i was told (that he was ready and arnott/meehan said to wait), it was obvious they were right. lets say lou offered him 12/84 (which is about what i would imagine lou offered) in february. his agents most likely say the same thing - that deal will be there for you. go to UFA and see if there's more. and that's probably when they told him he could probably get a package deal w/ suter if that was appealing to him.

simply put - this came down to suter. if he told parise, "you know what, i'm gonna go to detroit" or "i'm staying put in nashville.", parise is a devil FOR SURE. that being said, we'd be happy today that he was back but we'd be hating this deal or anything of its ilk in about 4 or 5 years.

That's if you buy Zach's line about the Devils being second on his list. I don't know if I'd take anything he said at face value after today.

[devilsrule33]

That's if you buy Zach's line about the Devils being second on his list. I don't know if I'd take anything he said at face value after today.

Everyone around him as echoed that. But like I said from the start, it's always good PR to say the team you just played for was in the mix to the last second. But we do know that most of the teams were told earlier they were out including the Penguins last night. I think it's pretty cool that Zach passed on some crazy situations including the Penguins and Flyers. It came down to him really wanting to play at home on a team that was competitive enough.

Edited by devilsrule33, 04 July 2012 - 09:00 PM.

[mouse]

but yeah you are right, it's happened way too much over the years. Parise, Gionta, Martin, Gomez, Holik, Neids, list goes on and on. It's frustrating.

The only good contract of those was Nieds. The other times, they got more than they were worth. As has been said, Lou tried to get Zach locked down before the 1 for a fair deal in the hopes that Zach wouldn't sign a stupid one when he saw it. Zach's agents realized he was going to get a stupid deal (or Zach always wanted to go to Minny). Nothing is better than signing Zach at a high cap hit for 13 years.

Lou got Elias for a fair amount. Marty too. He survived the near disaster with Kovy, though I still think it's too many years. Meanwhile, he's got Zajac and Henrique, and will hopefully keep them for the long term.

I don't care about winning the back page. The Rags do that. The Habs and Leafs do too. How many cups have they won since '94? Lou wins hockey games because he doesn't make stupid signings for the sake of saying he signed someone. Remember, Boston probably felt the same way when they lost Kessel. They haven't missed the playoffs since, and won a cup. Toronto hasn't made it. I know the circumstances aren't identical -- Parise was UFA, and maybe it would have been better to lose him when he was RFA and gotten compensation, but the fact is, we're better off than Minnesota right now, if worse than we were yesterday.

Finally, we didn't lose that much. Parenteau is a blow, but if our future rides on P.A. Parenteau, we're in terrible shape. We may get Semin or one of the RFAs or trade for someone from Edmonton, or we may wait a few years, but, no matter what has gone wrong, Lou has kept our franchise one of the two best in hockey for 15+ years. Even with ownership issues, I believe this organization is in great shape now, at least as long as Lou doesn't decide to retire and operate a Panera somewhere, and I'm sure we will win a cup before fvcking Minnesota.

And just so everybody knows, I'm leaving town tomorrow for a couple weeks, so if you disagree and I don't respond, don't take it the wrong way.

Edited by mouse, 04 July 2012 - 09:04 PM.

[ghdi]

Of the three Holik, Gionta, Gomez, Holik was the one Lou played the hardest for and lost out because of the money. Gomez was never offered a contract and Gionta went to the highest bidder where Lou had a max he was going to give him.

So the only ones we've really "lost" are Holik, Nieds, and Parise. The rest of them Lou either wasn't willing to pay what they got (and for the most part guessed correctly) or were not staying to begin with. The three we lost because a. Holik was greedy and we still won a Cup after he fled. b. Nieds took less to go play with Rob and c. Zachy wanted to go home and got a contract none of us would've been thrilled about had he got it here.

It sucks to lose names and guys we grow accustomed to rooting for, but we've been able to re-load and still be competitive. We've kept Marty. We've kept Elias. And we gotta hope that Kovy continues to produce and play up to that contract. Hopefully Henrique is the real deal and we can lock him up. At the end of the day, the biggest loss is Niedermayer. He's the only HOF'er out of the bunch with Zach a potential borderline HOF'er if even that.

[SterioDesign]

It's the same as talking to a tree. You keep perpetuating this fantasy that Lou didnt try to sign him. He did. And Zachs agents told him to wait for free agency. That's what their job is.

I really dont want to go back at this again and annoy everyone with this again but you clearly didnt understand my point (which was pretty damn simple)

Give me a time and we'll meet and argue in the chat so we dont annoy everyone else. deal?

cause it would be pretty damn long

[Zubie#8]

Kyle Wellwood anyone?

Would be a good replacement for Poni.

[thelastonealive]

Wellwood and Brodeur on the same sheet of ice? The fat jokes from unoriginal Ranger fans would never end.

[Mahon]

Like it or not we were Lebron Jamesed by Parise period end of sentence

[SterioDesign]

so from all our first round picks from the last 17 years... we have Sykora, Zajac, Josefson, Larsson... sometimes Tedenby left on our team

another point... obviously all we're gonna hear about our players in interviews about Zach is good things and that he made a decision bla bla bla... but im REALLY curious to know what they are saying about him between each others right now...

Edited by SterioDesign, 04 July 2012 - 09:31 PM.

[oconnellrules]

people really dont think suter is elite?

all i hear is how they overpaid, hes nothing without weber, hes not assertive enough, etc.

if you watch him play you know how good he is. the fact of the matter is he got the years and money that puck moving dmen get these days (ie: brian campbells last contract)

zachs contract is the joke.

[SterioDesign]

NJ's overall on NHL13 should go down a bit too... unless something happen this summer

[Bibby89]

NJ's overall on NHL13 should go down a bit too... unless something happen this summer

Could it actually go down anymore from NHL12? 73 is not really a professional team normal goalie rating...

[ghdi]

people really dont think suter is elite?

all i hear is how they overpaid, hes nothing without weber, hes not assertive enough, etc.

if you watch him play you know how good he is. the fact of the matter is he got the years and money that puck moving dmen get these days (ie: brian campbells last contract)

zachs contract is the joke.

I agree and said earlier that that I felt Suter's contract was the better of the two. Defenseman can last longer and Zach's tenacity could be what ends his career before this contract is 3/4 through. The one area I'd disagree on is that Suter has never played in the NHL without Shea Weber. Weber is by and large the better of the two. It remains to be seen what Suter is with 5 cogs. They dont have Brent Burns anymore because they traded him.

Edited by ghdi, 04 July 2012 - 09:53 PM.

[Lateralous]

people really dont think suter is elite?

all i hear is how they overpaid, hes nothing without weber, hes not assertive enough, etc.

if you watch him play you know how good he is. the fact of the matter is he got the years and money that puck moving dmen get these days (ie: brian campbells last contract)

zachs contract is the joke.

I think they are both great talents and I don't see either contract as being awful, but as much as they'll be hyped, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that the Wild make the playoffs next year. They have a long way to go to be a real contender which is what makes this so frustrating. Parise and Suter both said it was all about the opportunity to win and there are about 20 other teams closer than the Wild. Oh well, I'll be rooting hard for them to miss the playoffs, especially if the Devils and Preds can have similar seasons to the past year.

[CarpathianForest]

So Zach basically signed a three year loner contract than he would have gotten with us. Definitely wasn't about the money then.

[grcenter47]

Stan Fischler@StanFischler

If I'm not mistaken, Semin's agents are in New Jersey