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On the Pavel Zacha conundrum
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On the Pavel Zacha conundrum

Should the New Jersey Devils extend the 25-year-old a qualifying offer? I dove deeper into just that.

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Todd Cordell
Jun 08, 2022
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On the Pavel Zacha conundrum
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The New Jersey Devils have reached a fork in the road with Pavel Zacha.

They have a month (July 11) to decide whether they will qualify Zacha or let him walk to free agency.

While the answer seems obvious on the surface – qualify him and retain your asset! – there is more to it than that.

Zacha’s qualifying offer would come in at $3 million for one season, per CapFriendly. No matter what you think of the player, that’s reasonable enough. You can justify keeping him at that tag; you can also easily trade him afterwords.

Unfortunately, that QO is a little too reasonable. For all Zacha’s faults, he has produced 49 points per 82 games over the last two seasons. It doesn’t much matter if the process was healthy or not; the production is there.

Zacha has a solid case to be paid more. His agent Darren Ferris, who pulls no punches in getting his clients max compensation, knows that and would almost certainly suggest going to arbitration rather than taking the deal.

That’s where things get muddy.

Jack Roslovic, a player with nearly identical outputs over the last two years, just commanded $4 million per on a two-year deal.

Twitter avatar for @ToddCordell
Todd Cordell @ToddCordell
Roslovic: 25YO, 50 points per 82 over last 2 seasons Zacha: 25YO, 49 points per 82 over last 2 seasons I don't think the Devils are going to want to pay Zacha the going rate; nor do I think they should
Twitter avatar for @Aportzline
Aaron Portzline @Aportzline
#CBJ announce the signing of C Jack Roslovic to a two-year, $8 million contract extension. He would have been a restricted free agent this summer. Roslovic will make $4 million in each of the next two seasons. This contract walks him right up to unrestricted free agency in 2024.
3:57 PM ∙ Jun 7, 2022
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Evolving-Hockey has Zacha projected for $4.4M per if he were to extend for the same length.

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