DeBoer has had only a few days to ponder the idea of what his team will be life next season without Zach Parise and hasn’t begun to think about how his line combinations will look. He sounded confident, however, that the team will be able to pull together without Parise, who left New Jersey so sign with the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday.
“I think in order to reproduce what we did last year we’re going to have to get big years from all the guys that had big years without a dropoff and a lot of other guys are going to have to give us 10 or 20 percent more in order to try to fill those holes,” DeBoer said. “I think that’s definitely achievable.”
Like Lamoriello, DeBoer acknowledges that replacing Parise won’t be easy. What he contributed on the ice and in terms of leadership as the captain is something that will fall on the players he left behind to try to fill.
Lamoriello already said that the team will take some time before filling the captaincy. DeBoer waited until the end of training camp last season before giving the C to Parise.
“We’re going to have to do it by committee,” DeBoer said. “There’s not a Zach Parise replacement out there. Everyone’s going to have to get 10 percent better. The one thing I take comfort in is I believe we have best general manager in the game. He’s had a knack for, not just last year, but over the years, of filling holes as we’ve gone forward. So, I take a lot of comfort in that.”
Edited by ben00rs, 09 July 2012 - 09:47 PM.
