Well free agency is now a week old and in that time a large number of players have received new contracts. Some of those are with the same club as last season and others found new homes. My beloved Devils lost their captain Zach Parise and resigned a number of players including "senior" players Brodeur, Hedberg and Salvadore.
Don't get me wrong, these are some good young players but I think we need to start moving in the rebuild on the fly mode and focus on some more youth. Our defense is young, but our forwards and goaltenders are among the oldest in the league and I really like the Marty signing, but I think we need to focus on getting some young goalies action in the NHL in the next two years.
There are still some talented players available but most will require compensation through trade or rfa which sucks because it really isn't the approach I think we should be taking.
11/12 Black Diamond Martin Brodeur
The Devils also just lost Matt Taormina which is a little unfortunate. He is a talented offensive defensemen and for once we are starting to accumulate a large number of "prospects" at that position. It became a numbers game and I wish Matt all the best in Tampa, I suspect he will put up some good numbers this upcoming season if he can stay healthy!
Also as an aside, I think Parise signing with the Wild is the second worst thing that could happen to my collection of Parise cards. First off, he is no longer a Devils which sucks a fair bit, but also, no one is going to want my Parise cards anymore because he is gone into the abyss as far as collectors go. Does anyone out there actually collect Minnesota Wild cards? I don't see too many bidding wars for Mikko Koivu cards or P-M Bouchard autos. Unfortunately, he will be a great player on a small market team and the team itself I am predicting will win Zero Cups in the next 13 years. Not that I am hating on Zach, but I think that Minny is a long way away from being a Cup contender.
First - condolences on losing Parise. That stinks no matter what you replace him with.
ReplyDeleteAs for collecting value, it all depends what happens to Minnesota. I'm not ready to anoint them the new Beasts of the West (sounds better in the East) but they might change their play a bit and be somewhat more interesting. They aren't the old Lemaire team.
Thanks for the condolences. I want to wish you the best of luck with the JVR experiment. If you need any of his cards let me know, I appear to be hoarding them like no tomorrow.
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