On the Pavel Zacha conundrum
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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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.
Evolving-Hockey has Zacha projected for $4.4M per if he were to extend for the same length.
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