This past weekend, rumours swirled about Toronto's alleged interest in New Jersey Devils centre Travis Zajac. The connection here is obvious. Zajac, a former first-round pick in 2004, was drafted and developed by none other than new Leafs general manager Lou Lamoriello.
For a team mostly devoid of talent right now, it's understandable why the beggars-can't-be-choosers crowd fanned the flames of this trade rumor. The Leafs have a huge hole down the middle of the lineup, and Zajac's been, at the very least, a pillar of stability for a New Jersey team venturing into a rebuild.
That's perhaps the only defensible point of this proposed trade. For starters, I can't see how Zajac fits into Toronto's plans either – he's a 30+ veteran with a massive contract, both in terms of average annual value ($5.75 million) and dollars owed ($28.75 million) through the 2020 season.
Another day, another questionable, dirty hit. For those that are defending this hit and saying that this isn't a hit to the head, look a the Gif above. The video evidence doesn't lie. Bortuzzo catches Jagr right in the head with his shoulder. The head is the principle point of contract.
Pittsburgh defenseman Robert Bortuzzo will have a hearing for a late hit on New Jersey forward Jaromir Jagr. Day & time TBD.
— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) December 3, 2014
Devils not happy with hit on Jagr. DeBoer: "If one of our guys did that to Crosby it would have been World War 4" http://t.co/1YWuaH2WCD
— Eye on Hockey (@EyeOnHockey) December 3, 2014
English: Montreal Canadiens forward Tomas Plekanec during warm-up prior to a National Hockey League game against the Calgary Flames, in Calgary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
New Jersey Devils forward Damien Brunner scores a beautiful goal against the Ottawa Senators, but the refs should have called the play dead and called a penalty. I would have been upset if I was the coach of the Senators as well. This is a blown call in my opinion.
Devils forward Damien Brunner scores a beautiful goal against the Senators. Obviously, there will be some that think this should have been a penalty. It could have been.
Here is the roster for the Team USA's National Junior Evaluation Camp, after it was cut down from 43 to 31 players. Not that many players from the CHL this year.
GOALIES:
Thatcher Demko, Boston College, HE (2014 draft eligible)
s/t to the Score. I got a chuckle out of this while I was watching this game yesterday. For a guy that's 40 years old Martin Brodeur can still move really good, and with all that equipment on. If the puck had actually gone in, it wouldn't have counted because the Pittsburgh Penguins were off-sides on the play.
Former Fighting Sioux forward and current New Jersey Devil Travis Zajac is the first player to sign a big contract under the new CBA.
Here is the break down of the deal:
2013-14 $3.5 million (includes $1 million in signing bonus)
2014-15 $5 million (includes $1 million in signing bonus)
2015-16 $6.5 million
2016-17 $6.5 million
2017-18 $6.5 million
2018-19 $6.5 million
2019-20 $5.75 million
2020-21 $5.75 million
1. Montreal
2. Boston
3. NY Rangers
4. Detroit
5. Philadelphia
6. Toronto
7. Pittsburgh
8. Minnesota
9. Columbus
10. New Jersey
11. Chicago
12. Buffalo
13. NY Islanders
14. San Jose
15. Florida
16. Winnipeg
17. Vancouver
18. Phoenix
19. Calgary
20. Tampa Bay
21. Carolina
22. Nashville
23. Anaheim
24. Ottawa
25. St. Louis
26. Edmonton
27. Washington
28. Los Angeles
29. Dallas
30. Colorado
The Second hour is where Parise talks to the hosts. [click to listen]
Zach Parise on defining success in Minnesota – “In New Jersey we hadn’t won a round… I think it was since 2006, we hadn’t won a playoff round for a long time, we missed the playoffs the year before going to the finals; the league is so even right now,” Parise said.
“If you look at the Stanley Cup Finals this year you have a sixth seed with us [Devils] and the eight seed with L.A. – it’s so even that you just want to get in. The team that seems to get hot for two months always does well.”
“I think when you through in a defenseman of the caliber of Ryan Suter and mix him in with the defensemen they already got and put him on any team, that immediately makes the team much better and the appeal of having him there with me… I was… I thought it was a great fit. Like you said, I know they haven’t won a playoff series in a while and that is a challenge that everyone is going to face and hopefully we can get into the post season this year and progress and develop and get to the ultimate thing.”
Perusing the internet today it appears that the Boston Bruins also offered Zach Parise a significant contract offer.
Fluto Shinzawa, Boston Globe --- Before Sunday’s market opening, GM Peter Chiarelli said he expected to be quiet. The Bruins have less than $3 million in available cap space.
Had the Bruins signed Parise, they would have exceeded the $70.2 million cap by the allowable 10 percent offseason margin. They could have placed Marc Savard on long-term injured reserve if necessary.
Parise said his final decision came between Minnesota and New Jersey. Parise is a Minnesota native. The left wing had previously played for the Devils his entire career.
Parise, the ex-captain of the Devils, was one of the two high-end free agents available on the market. Ryan Suter was the other. Both signed identical deals with the Wild.
Obviously, the Boston Bruins didn’t have a lot of space to work with and they would have had to makes some moves to get under the cap. Could Bruins fans imagine how he would have looked in the B’s line up skating alongside a couple of the Bruins faster forwards like Patrice Bergeron and say the “Little Ball of Hate” Brad Marchand.
This is my second installment of morons of the twitter-verse. One of my favorite Twitter feeds is the Angry NHL fans @LOLVancouver I am going to apologize for the coarse language right off of the bat - most of the stuff that I posted here is down right moronic - some of it borders on the realm of what I would consider anti-social behavior. Reading these posts you have to really question some of these people's their sanity. Some of the tweets I read were silly as well.
You have to wonder if some of these people realize that everything that you put on the internet is out there for all to see? If I was in human resources and one of these people were one of my potential recruits I would think twice about hiring these people. These are just a sampling of some of the worst ones that I have seen today.
Here are a few that twitter poster that don't know how to spell the word traitor... I didn't know that Zach Parise was a trader?
If anything Zach Parise has been loyal and was a New Jersey Devil for seven seasons. Actually, if we are counting the lockout season, it would be eight seasons in the the seasons in the New Jersey Devils organization. I am not sure how this clown and others came to this conclusion.
Wow! You want a sports figure to die because he didn't sign or resign with your favorite team. I am sure this guy's mother would be proud.
The dawn of a new era is upon us..... One could say that today was a historic day in Minnesota Wild History.
Here are some quotes from today....
Parise: "Every kid who’s grown up in Minnesota would love to play for the Wild. That’s the way it is."
Parise on Koivu: "They've already got a captain, and they've got a great captain.
Suter says toughest call he's ever had to make in his life was to David Poile. "It was so hard"
Parise says, "It was between New Jersey and Minnesota. I'm a loyal person, I love playing [in NJ]."Parise says, "Just the opportunity to play at home, it really meant a lot to me and my family. My parents were so excited, ..."
Parise on playing at home being a part of his decision: "It was a very big part of it."
Suter says they were texting each other back and forth where "we can both work. Last night into this morning it became realistic."
Parise: Ryan and I had talked throughout the year. 'Wouldn't be great to have a chance to play on the same team?'
Parise said that he and Suter talked "throughout the year," in case this didn't already feel enough like the Heat.
“I was just waiting to hear the news,” Cullen said a couple hours after the deals were announced. “It was a pretty exciting time just waiting to see what would happen. … I had a really strong idea that we were right in the mix.”
Matt Cullen on today's trade. ”I was ecstatic,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting when you get one guy of that caliber. To get two is pretty unheard of. Strictly from the standpoint of a Minnesotan, it’s unbelievable. We haven’t had a great deal of players at this level. To get two, it changes the look of our team.”
"If we work hard and get some breaks," Fletcher said, "there's no reason we can't be pretty good."
Finally, it can be told: Zach Parise pronounces his name "pah-ree-SEE." Says you'd have to ask his dad how he pronounces it.
Suter: "Nashville is on the rise, but it came down to Zach had a big part in the decision, and my family."
Today, NHL hockey fans from Pittsburgh, Minnesota and New Jersey are wondering where Zach Parise is going to sign. It looks like it's going to be another night before we find out where he is going to go.
Like most fans, I have been hovering by the computer all day long, waiting on the edge of my seat wondering where former Fighting SiouxAll-American and New Jersey Devil Zach Parise is going to land, after Zach signs a new contract, he is going to need to buy a wheel barrow to take his money to the bank.
According to Russo, "the Wild are still in it."
I had a few people ask me what I think of Parise flying back to Minnesota tomorrow and I am not sure what we would even make out of it. I honestly don't feel all of that confident that Parise is going to sign with the Wild and that the Devils could have put a lot of pressure on Zach and that he is torn and having a tough time with the decision.
According to Lou Nanne, "he [Parise] is not going to Jersey, there is no possible way that they're in.
Here is what Lou Nanne had to say about the whole Zach Parise story. I always take what Lou Nanne says with a grain of salt.
"A signing of this magnitude should takes place in the area where he is going to play and the team would want him there," Nanne said. "I just can't fathom that he coming home to Minnesota to tell us that he is going to Pittsburgh."
Looks like the New York Rangers plan on holding on to the NHL fighting Major total this season again. The New York Rangers have re-signed former Gophers hack defenseman Stu Bickel to a modest contract.
NEW YORK (AP) --- The New York Rangers have added grit and experience to their lineup by reaching a deal with forward Arron Asham on the first day of NHL free agency.
A 13-season NHL veteran, Asham spent the past two years with Pittsburgh. He had five goals and 11 assists in 64 games last season. Overall, he has 92 goals and 206 points in 756 career games split between five teams.
Asham broke into the NHL in 1998 with Montreal, and has also played for the Islanders, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Earlier on Sunday, the Rangers agreed to re-sign defenseman Stu Bickel, who had nine assists in 51 games in his first NHL season last year. New York had acquired Bickel in a trade with Anaheim in November 2010.
It’s no mystery why Bickel is playing with the New York Rangers - the slow foot defensman Bickel played minuscule minutes during the Rangers playoff push and was seen as a defensive liability at crucial times.
One of Bickel’s redeeming strengths is that he is willing drop the gloves and be a punching bag is probably the main reason Bickel was inserted into the Rangers line up this past season. Bickel was third on the Rangers in fights and dropped the gloves 12 times during 51 games for the New Yorks Rangers. Brandon Prust lead the Rangers with 20 fights but signed a contract with the Montreal Canadians.
This is one of those stories that aren’t going to go away, until we know where former Fighting Sioux All-American forward Zach Parise is headed. Zach Parise hasn’t tipped his hat where he is going either, only to say that he wants to re-sign with the New Jersey Devils. You can rest assured that Parise and his agent are going to get a bunch of offers from a lot of teams.
Joan Niesen, FSN.COM --- Parise said he treats his impending free agency as something he can take advantage of, but it would seem that balancing his sanity with the desire to get the most out of this summer is something he's grappling with daily. Talk to Parise for five minutes and who knows how many times he'll say he wants to minimize the stress of the process. However, coming home to Minneapolis this offseason, though a natural move, is unlikely to mitigate the constant scrutiny.
Parise grew up in Bloomington, Minn. His father, J.P., played for the North Stars, and Parise still keeps a house in the Twin Cities, which he returned to last Friday from New Jersey. That's why he made an appearance Wednesday at the Defending the Blue Line game on the University of Minnesota campus, where he signed autographs and watched from the bench. As an unsigned player, Parise did not compete with the local hockey stars who took the ice. Instead, he subjected himself to the barrage of questions he's mostly unable to answer.
On Tuesday morning Paul Allen had Michael Russo beat writer of the Minnesota Wild from the Minneapolis Star and Tribune on the KFAN 100.3 and the two of them discussed the Parise free agency story and where they think that Zach might go. Russo seems to think that if the Wild get Parise that they might have a good chance to get Predators’ defenseman Ryan Sutter. You can listen to P.A.’s interview of Russo from the podcast that is embedded below in the blog post.
I know this is an old story, actually it's about half a week old, but I just found the video for Parise's comments that he made last week while being interviewed by the media.
The now famous comments by Parise, when he said, "No way I'll sign with Rangers."
As a Bruins and Wild fan, nothing pleases me more than to hear Parise say that. So going forward, we can probably scratch the Rangers off of the list of teams where Zach Parise might end up in the off season.
After reading this article it looks like the Boston Bruins aren't going to be making any big moves either in the off-season - so I think we might be able to cross off the Bruins off the list as well, as a place where Parise will not end up during the free agency signing period.
First off, color me cynical, if not almost suspicious that Lou Nanne is on record after conveniently talking to the Wild Wild owner Craig Leipold that he believes that Parise is going to sign with the Minnesota Wild.
Judd Zulgad, 1500ESPN.com --- Former North Stars president and general manager Lou Nanne confirmed as much on Tuesday during his weekly appearance on "Reusse and Mackey" on 1500 ESPN. Nanne said that after talking to Wild owner Craig Leipold last week he believes, "the Wild are going to throw the kitchen sink" at the winger in order to land him.
Nanne said he thinks the fact the financially strapped Devils lost in the Cup finals make it less likely that Parise will stick with that organization. Parise has spent his seven-year NHL career with New Jersey and served as the team's captain.
"I was under the belief that he would have to win the Cup to come to Minnesota until I talked to Craig Leipold last week," Nanne said. "I've gotta tell you, the Wild are going to throw the kitchen sink at him. I think there's a good chance he ends up in Minnesota, because I don't see anybody in the National Hockey League willing to give as much to Parise as the Wild are going to be willing to give. So I would not be surprised if Zach Parise came home."
Nanne went on to say that the Wild will pursue Parise and Nashville defenseman Ryan Suter, who also will be a free agent on July 1.
“I’m not going to talk about that,” the Devils captain said. “I’m not going to talk about that.”
Now that the Stanley Cup Finals are over the six-10 million dollar question is where is former Fighting Sioux All-American forward Zach Parise is going to sign after the July first? I have seen where the Rangers, Redwings, Wild, Bruins and Kings as potential teams where he might end up. I wouldn’t rule New Jersey out either; apparently the New Jersey Devils made 32 million dollars into their coffers off of their Stanley Cup Playoff run.
