More cap woes for the New Jersey Devils
The Devils wanted Ilya Kovalchuk and they finally got him. However, the journey wasn’t easy or cheap. With Kovalchuk, the Devils were roughly $3.4 million over the cap and they absolutely have to be under it by the 6thof October. As a result,
the Devils have started making cuts left right and centre. The latest to go were Mattias Tedenby, Jacob Josefson, Matthew Corrente, and Rob Davison. At the end of the cuts, only left 22 players on the Devils' Roster.
Adding to the woes, Bryce Salvador and Anssi Salmela haven’t been back on the ice so far. Salvador is still recovering from knee problems while Salmela is out of the team for an indefinite period. If both players are placed on the long term injured reserve
list, which they likely would be, the Devils would fall just under the cap. That is still a temporary solution because as soon as they are ready to play again, the Devils would have to fix their cap problems all over again.
The league will be monitoring Salvador and Salmela’s progress very closely. With all the salary cap circumvention talk focussed on the devils, the league won’t exactly take Lou Lamoriello’s word on Salvador and Salmela’s conditions for granted.
If they are ready to play before Lou has made some moves to fix the cap, the Devils would have some serious problems.
Even after putting the two on the long-term injured reserve list, the Devils won’t have space in their cap to sign Adam Mair. The LTIR only meant that the Devils did not have to solve the problem right away and had some time to make the necessary changes.
The solution to this problem had to be a move or a trade and that came today.
There was no way around it and the Devils fans knew they’d lose someone to the cap. That someone turned out to be Dainius Zubrus. Dainius carries with him a cap of $3.4 million, almost exactly as much as the Devils need to lose to get under the cap. General
Manager Lou Lamoriello might have done this for cap security going into the regular season. They can now sign Adam Mair but would still have to start the season with just 20 players.
Coach John MacLean apparently had seen it coming. Asked if he expected to open the season with 11 forwards, MacLean was purposefully evasive. He said that if he had to start the game with just 20, he’d be ready for it and the players would be prepared for
it too. “We’ll deal with each game on a game-by-game basis. I’ll have 20 each game – if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is.”
The 20 signed players, which included Dainius, include 11 forwards, 7 defensemen and two goaltenders. Devils’ coach John MacLean said that he would be happy with any forwards and defenseman arrangement that is ready for the regular season. At the moment
it seems it would be 11 forwards but Dainius won’t be one of them. The roster as it would most likely be for the coming season is as follows:
Ilya Kovalchuk ($6,666,667), Patrik Elias ($6,000,000), Brian Rolston ($5,062,500), Jason Arnott ($4,500,000), Travis Zajac ($3,887,500), Zach Parise ($3,125,000), Jamie Langenbrunner ($2,800,000), David Clarkson ($2,666,667), Rod Pelley ($550,000), Pierre-Luc
Leblond ($525,000) and the unsigned right winger Adam Mair would be New Jersey’s 11 forwards.
The defensemen would include Anton Volchenkov ($4,250,000), Henrik Tallinder ($3,375,000), Colin White ($3,000,000), Alexander Urbom ($870,000), Andy Greene ($737,500), Matt Taormina ($510,000), Mark Fraser ($500,000) and the two on the long term injured
reserve, Bryce Salvador ($2,900,000) and Salmela Anssi ($612,500).
With the two goaltenders’ combined $6, 700, 00 cap hit, the Devils would barely have enough space to squeeze in Mair.
Coach Maclean said that he was happy with the roster as it stood during this week’s practices. “We have some good lines out there and with the lines and the speed that we have I think we’re going to be able to do some damage.”
That may or may not be true. Questions would also be asked regarding Kovalchuk’s worth in the salary cap world. He would be under pressure to make sure he is worth more than what he has cost. These and other questions would start to answer themselves as
the regular season opens on Friday.
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