Zach Parise leaves,but the beat goes on...

 The New Jersey Devils may have lost their captain and biggest name of their free agents,but they kept everyone else that they wanted/needed in keep in-house and most importantly,the Devils family maintained their upbeat attitude when all was said and done...

The Devils said goodbye to their captain as Zach Parise signed a long term deal to return to his home state with the Minnesota Wild.
Parise will be missed as it is very difficult to just snap your fingers and replace the type of production that Zach Parise brings to the table.
I do think that the Devils earned some leeway from their fanbase for making what was a very competitive offer to keep Parise and I think the fact that Parise chose to return home along with the Wild being a Western Conference non-rival will help Parise from some of the animosity that was given to the likes of Scott Gomez and Bobby Holik when they left the organization.

I do think that the Devils have a chance to offset the loss of Parise as I would think that this is the chances for Ilya Kovalchuk to return to his natural position of left wing and that might be worth a handful of extra goals to the stat line,but in any case,things will be different for the next set of Devils to take the ice without Zach Parise on the wing.
13 years is a long time and considering the Kovalchuk contract and the injury history of Parise,the Devils might be disappointed today in losing Parise,but the team may not be so disappointed five years from now.....

The Devils also lost another forward as Alexei Ponikarovsky signed with the Winnipeg Jets.
Ponikarovsky was a strong presence on the third line after being obtained from Carolina during the season,but was not a playoff mainstay and that might have helped the Devils decision to allow him to seek an better option in free agency.

New Jersey managed to hold onto everyone else that were free agent with the team keeping their forty year old goalie tandem of Martin Brodeur and Johan Hedberg intact with new contracts.
That decision gives the franchise two years to develop Scott Wedgewood,Keith Kincaid or someone else for that inevitable day that the greatest goalie of all time decides that his time is truly finished in the game.

The team also surprisingly managed to re-sign Bryce Salvador to a three year contract.
I had thought that after Salvador's terrific playoff performance that he might have signed elsewhere,but the team was to keep the veteran defender with a long term deal.
I would have rather had the contract be a bit shorter,but it is nice to have Salvador returning to the team. .

New Jersey also kept its productive fourth line together as Ryan Carter,Steve Bernier and Stephen Gionta were all re-signed with Carter and Bernier getting two year deals and Gionta getting a one year contract.
I like that move as role players that know the system at a reasonable cost is usually a good thing...

The team re-signed Cam Janssen as an enforcer and bought out Eric Boulton.
I thought that was a smooth move as a team does not need two enforcers,but the Devils then signed another one in Krys Barch.
Still think two is one too many..

Mark Fayne is going to arbitration with the team to settle their contract issue.

That is back to par for now and as always news here as it permits....