New Jersey Devils: Pondering the Future of Star Zach Parise

February 14th, 2011 by Dustin Pollack Leave a reply »
For the New Jersey Devils and, in fact, the entire NHL, the 2010 offseason was consumed by one major storyline—the future of Ilya Kovalchuk.

The speculation of where the Russian sniper would end up went on for months until finally (after having one of their offers to Kovalchuk rejected by the NHL for salary cap circumvention) the Devils, Kovalchuk and the league agreed to the terms on a deal that would pay him $100 million over the next 15 years.

However, what fans have yet to realize is how much the Kovalchuk deal will directly affect the Devils' future, specifically with the re-signing of superstar left winger Zach Parise.

With only 15 players under contract for next season, the Devils still need to fill 12 or 13 roster spots for 2011-2012 and they have just over $9 million in cap space to do so.

So where exactly does Parise fit in?

As the franchise player on 20-plus teams in the league its likely Parise will want a franchise-player contract that would be long term and pay him upwards of $7 million per season.

So if I’m Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello, with the trade deadline nearly two weeks away, I’d b ...

Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by

Advertisement

Comments are closed.