Battle Of Hudson

Former Shark Martin Havlat is one of five FA’s the Devils signed yesterday, reuniting with some old friends.

Usually our July 1 drama is all about who we lose as opposed to who we bring in. Although we lost defenseman Mark Fayne as expected, to a contract that wasn’t quite as high as expected by the Oilers (apparently they were saving their really big offer for Benoit Pouliot), for the first time since the summer of Kovalchuk the Devils added more than they subtracted on FA day and filled some needs.  Scoring winger Mike Cammalleri gives us the goal-scoring LW that we sorely lacked last year to pair up with Travis Zajac and Jaromir Jagr.  Winger Martin Havlat adds to our scoring depth up front and reunites him with Czech buddies Patrik Elias and Marek Zidlicky.  Retaining Steven Gionta and Steve Bernier – the latter really surprising to me, the former not so much – all but reunites the fourth line with Ryan Carter still considering offers from the Devils and other unnamed team(s).  And signing Scott Clemmensen clearly signals the organization is willing to give young Keith Kinkaid a shot to earn the backup goaltender job behind Cory Schnieder.

What’s more, we’re still being linked to scoring winger Radim Vrbata even though we have thirteen forwards under contract already plus RFA Jacob Josefson plus Carter supposedly considering a return as well.  Apparently in the absence of a defensive glut we’ve decided to have a forward glut this year although it’s not exactly a bad idea given the age and injury history on most of our forward group.  As the jokers on TSN said to Cammalleri yesterday, ‘so you’re the young guy on this team’.  Close enough considering we have exactly two forwards under the age of 29 with one being Josefson, who’s back in limbo again with the return of Gionta and the signing of so many forwards.  Perhaps Reid Boucher and Stefan Matteau’s time will have to wait for the moment, which also isn’t a terrible idea since each only has one full season in the AHL under their belts and limited NHL experience.  There’s still time for them to make an impact, possibly even this year.

Since Derek’s recapped all the signings I’ll just give general thoughts on each player.  Cammalleri was obvoiusly the big fish of the bunch – and granted his five year, $25 million price tag was a little troubling to me at first, particularly considering he’s thirty-two years old and (like most of our forwards) prone to missing games from time to time.  I didn’t feel so bad after a few of the other contracts handed out yesterday though, and while obviously every player is going to profess his love for his new team it somehow seemed more sincere with Cammalleri.  As beat guy Tom Gulutti pointed out, it’s not often you hear a FA cite where the team ranks in goals allowed, especially considering it’s a forward.  And for his part GM Lou Lamoriello admitted that Cammalleri ‘knew more about the Devils than he I (Lou) would imagine because of playing with Gomez and Gionta’.  Lou also said of his new addition:

“He’s got the touch,” Lamoriello said. “He knows how to score. He knows the game, very astute hockey person technically as far as in our conversations and he works at it. We’re delighted to have him.”

If Cammalleri was a neccesary signing, Havlat was somewhat predictable given all the Czechs already on the roster, particularly good buddies Elias and Zidlicky.  Clearly the price was right considering he came on a one year, $1.5 million deal.  Whether the talented winger still has the ability to turn back the clock at 33 with a multitude of injuries behind him remains to be seen.  Havlat hasn’t been a top offensive player since 2011, when he finished off a 62-point season for the Wild.  Over the last three years he’s only played 135 games including playoffs, with 29 goals and 70 points total in that time frame.  Being with Elias can only help, as Havlat admits:

“We always great chemistry together,” Havlat said. “If I can say there were one or two players that actually had chemistry with during my career, I would say that’s Patty. So, I’m just hoping it’s going to work out well again. I don’t see a reason why not. So, hopefully, it’s going to be like that. There’s a lot of things that went wrong or could be better (in San Jose) and I just need to stay healthy and everything else I think is going be great. Whatever my role was on the past teams that’s behind me and I’m looking forward to me new role here.”

Fulfilling our ex-Devil quota, Lou again went back to the past bringing back Clemmensen to add to our organizational depth at goaltender.  By not signing a more big-name backup, Lou sent a dual message that it’s indeed Cory Schnieder’s team, and that it’s time for Keith Kinkaid to earn a spot with the NHL team, even if it’s as a 15-game a year backup.  Given Clemmensen signed a two-way deal (and the fact he’s had a couple of poor years in Florida), it’s more than likely he’ll begin the season in the AHL with Kinkaid getting the first crack at the backup role.  Of course he began 2008-09 in the AHL too and wound up being a savior for a couple of months when Martin Brodeur was shelved due to injury.

Speaking of Brodeur, it seems as if his status is in limbo after Pittsburgh, Tampa and Toronto all showed moderate interest but eventually backed out.  Which doesn’t entirely close the door to a Brodeur return here later on should Cory get hurt or something else disasterous happens though maybe he’ll just call it a day and retire.  I know he wants to get to 700 wins but if a 42-year old Marty is going to try to dictate the terms on which he gets to play then he’s not likely going to get to play.  I don’t want to tell Marty to retire if he truly loves the game, but he’s gotta be more reasonable in what he’s asking for considering the lack of goaltending spots available at the moment.

Also returning to the Devils was Stephen Gionta on a two-year deal at 800k, despite his brother Brian opting to go home to Buffalo and sign a three-year deal with the Sabres.  It wouldn’t have surprised me if we signed both Giontas honestly and it sounds like we were kicking the tires on Brian at least, given Clemmensen’s quote about how he was trying to help recruit Brian to come here.  Fellow fourth-liner Steve Bernier also decided to return, despite a blunt assessment from Lou on his 2013-14 season:

@Ledger_NJDevils: Lamoriello on Steve Bernier’s 1-year, $600,000 deal: “He did not have a good year. We brought him back to resurrect his career.”

Seemingly free agency is bringing out the Brian Burke in Lou as he also had some strong comments in regards to the Cammalleri signing, though it was more about free agency in general, admitting that guys get signed for too much money and too many dollars.  He’s not wrong but when your organizational depth is lacking and your two franchise wingers both leave in back-to-back seasons sometimes you have to pay the piper.  Although I’m not going to lie I do have misgivings about getting too happy over FA signings considering how rarely they work out, and our best FA offseason in recent memory turned out to be our worst (half) season in two decades.  Still, gaining players beats losing players.  And after the last couple of seasons you almost can’t have too much forward depth, though it looks like we’re going to try.

On the eve of free agency, the first domino fell in New Jersey when Lou Lamoriello decided to use the Devils’ second and last compliance buyout on Anton Volcheknov, erasing his $4.25 million from the cap the next two seasons.  Volchenkov had originally been signed to a six-year deal in the summer of 2010 but unfortunately only came close to playing a full season once – in 2011-12 when he played 72 games.  He played 57, 56 and 32 (in the lockout season) games in his other seasons, and never really came close to living up to his prior form in Ottawa as a shot-blocking, hitting menace.  At times Volchenkov showed flashes of being that player but injuries and diminishing footspeed limited his effectiveness.  Although at first Lou said it was unlikely the team would use its final compliance buyout, he acknowledged circumstances changed when the cap came in at $2-3 million lower than expected.

Tom Gulitti ‏@TGfireandice  26m

Lamoriello called buying out Volchenkov “a very difficult” decision, but it was done to give team cap “flexibility.”

With the buyout, the Devils have approximately $14 million in cap space though nearly half will likely go to RFA contracts for Jacob Josefson, Eric Gelinas and Adam Larsson as well as a backup goalie and UFA spots for our fourth line, all of whom remain unsigned at the moment.  Still, the Devils now have a little wiggle room if they want to upgrade up front.  It doesn’t seem likely they’ll make any further moves on defense, but who knows.  Lou claims he has a good offer for Fayne, but acknowledged that we ‘might not be able to compete with the numbers that are out there’.  So assuming Fayne walks will Lou make a play for another UFA defenseman, or will we finally begin the transition to our younger defensemen (since it seems likely all of Jon Merrill, Adam Larsson and Eric Gelinas will be on the roster)?

With the buyout, the Devils have approximately $14 million in cap space though nearly half will likely go to RFA contracts for Jacob Josefson, Eric Gelinas and Adam Larsson as well as a backup goalie and UFA spots for our fourth line, all of whom remain unsigned at the moment.  Still, the Devils now have a little wiggle room if they want to upgrade up front.  It doesn’t seem likely they’ll make any further moves on defense, but who knows.  Lou claims he has a good offer for Fayne, but acknowledged that we ‘might not be able to compete with the numbers that are out there’.  So assuming Fayne walks will Lou make a play for another UFA defenseman, or will we finally begin the transition to our younger defensemen (since it seems likely all of Jon Merrill, Adam Larsson and Eric Gelinas will be on the roster)?

Clearly now that the Devils have cap space they’ll be linked to every big-name forward in free agency, we all know the names by now so it’s redundant to speculate further on who we might sign and who we wouldn’t…we’ll just have to see what Lou can come up with starting tomorrow.  As far as the fourth line goes, Lou claims he wants all of them back but reading between the lines, it seems obvious Ryan Carter and Steven Gionta are higher priorities than RW Steve Bernier.  One way or another it looks like the end of CBGB.  Although they outlived their usefulness as a line there were plenty of good moments too, with the 2012 playoffs being their collective shining moment.  They were solid in 2013, but their play dropped off last season and perhaps the Devils are ready to inject a little more youth up front with Reid Boucher and Stefan Matteau knocking on the door to more playing time.

One way or another, tomorrow will be very interesting for not only Devil fans but all puckheads around North America.  I envy those who can take off to partake in FA frenzy, if I’m lucky I’ll be able to listen to the NHL Network on SiriusXM during work tomorrow.  If not, I’ll just have to follow on Twitter until 4.  At which point I’ll be watching the US soccer game at home before I have to go out by 6.  Of course tomorrow had to be personally busy for me, but I’ll be back late on in the day to give a recap over what happens with the Devils – assuming something big does.