Devils re-sign Travis Zajac - 8 year, 46 million (5.75 per)

[puckbags 863]

Am I completely missing something here...he has 91 career goals, played only 15 games last year because of injuries and the year before that had 44pts.

https://twitter.com/Real_ESPNLeBrun/status/291628985069215744

[amato 3,210]

Wow now he really better perform.. I always thought he was good and had potential but not 5.75 mill a year good.

Edit: not yet anyway

Edited January 16, 2013 by amato

[shoobiedoobin 138]

This to me comes off as either signing with the hope he'll pan out or locking him up since losing he and Parise at one time would be pretty rough.

[ogreslayer 1,069]

It's good to see that owners are going to rein it in on the whole overspending thing after losing half the season to the lockout.

[Jaymister 71]

Wow, massive over-payment, I wouldn't give him much more than half of this ,much per year. He has a lot of potential, but in no way has earned to be payed this much.

[puckbags 863]

Wow, massive over-payment, I wouldn't give him much more than half of this ,much per year. He has a lot of potential, but in no way has earned to be payed this much.

Earning a contract doesn't exist anymore..guys get paid 5.75 million a year for potential. I should tell my boss I think I could potentially be the CEO of this company and he should pay me for it now...Unreal.

[Drake_Marcus 890]

What a joke. The first big signing post-lockout and it's an overpayment. What was the point of the lockout again?

The worst thing is this is a statement signing... it sets a terrible standard for future contracts under this cba.

[Jaymister 71]

Earning a contract doesn't exist anymore..guys get paid 5.75 million a year for potential. I should tell my boss I think I could potentially be the CEO of this company and he should pay me for it now...Unreal.

Ya no kidding, I wish it worked like that in real life.

[Mikeal 60]

Crazy signing. I wonder how NJ will look in a couple years...

[kook_10 1,705]

Zajac is great defensively and doesn't get much attention for it, but he is certainly not $5.75 million great.

[shoobiedoobin 138]

We complain now but I wonder what the upcoming free agency period will look like when the first few big names hit July 1st without a contract. We don't want to overpay based on aspects other than results but if you don't, it seems nowadays like there's always a desperate GM who will. With the cap and this era of artificial parity and the no team left behind mentality if you don't overpay to keep your guys, you go thin and die. But the teams who overpay will grow fat and, well, die too from the same type of poor management just on the opposite end. GM in this league is tougher than we think when selling a player is tougher than ever since they know they can get a cash grab somewhere else. It used to be more about winning, now it's about everything else. What I know for sure is that the salary cap broke Lou.

Edited January 16, 2013 by shoobiedoobin

[toby91_ca 620]

The $5.75 million annual cap hit is stupid enough, the fact that he got a MAX term deal brings the stupidity to an even stupider level (I know that's not a word).

[haroldsnepsts 4,826]

Seems like overpayment to me. But considering it's down to him and Kovalchuk, with practically the rest of their offense as UFA's and RFA's at the end of the season, they didn't have a lot of leverage.

Lebrun has a pretty good article on the signing. Pointing out how his pay is lower the first couple seasons and has the signing bonuses there, likely to help prevent his contract from taking an escrow hit in those years.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/21391/could-travis-zajacs-deal-set-a-trend

[StormJH1 231]

I don't understand this at all. It sounds like the classic case of a team losing a big-time free agent (in this case, Parise) and then feeling the need to overpay somebody either on the FA market or on your own team to compensate for it. Buffalo did this for years, and look at the crap contracts they have now. So did Montreal. And when the Wild lost Gaborik, they went and paid Havlat a big portion of the money they used to pay Gaborik, and it was terrible until they made a pretty good trade with the Sharks.

I think the fact that the first "max" deal paid out to retained FA being Zajac at 46 million is a terrible precedent. If the owners truly thought that capping deals at 8 years would discourage long-term commitments, they obviously don't follow the NBA. NBA max deals are shorter, but players feel "slighted" if they don't get the full extent of what teams can pay them. If I'm the agent of any pending free agent mid-level player, I'm pointing to Zajac getting a max deal the first chance I get.

The point of a long-term deal is supposed to be agreeing to less money PER YEAR in exchange for long-term security. Could you imagine Zajac making 6.5 million or 7 million in ANY year on a shorter-term deal? I sure the heck can't.