As speculation surrounding Taylor Hall’s future with the New Jersey Devils rises, the situation is reminiscent of Zach Parise’s final 18 months in Newark. Especially considering how this season has gone, Devils fans appear torn on whether Hall re-signs in New Jersey.
Although it’ll be seven years this summer, Parise’s departure still feels fresh in the minds of many Devils fans, who are dreading the prospect of seeing another superstar player leave for nothing. While it remains to be seen how long Taylor Hall remains a New Jersey Devil, there are some notable differences between the contract situations of him and Zach Parise worth noting.
The first is pointing out the philosophical differences between Ray Shero and his predecessor Lou Lamoriello. The biggest distinction between both general managers is their history of re-signing core players. Shero, who has always been a general manager in the salary cap era, has a remarkable track record of retaining core players. During his years in Pittsburgh, Shero re-signed Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jordan Staal and Marc-Andre Fleury—all pivotal components to Pittsburgh’s four Stanley Cup Finals appearances from 2008-2017—to long-term contracts.
In the salary cap era alone, Lamoriello saw names like Scott Niedermayer, Scott Gomez, Brian Rafalski, Paul Martin and Zach Parise leave the New Jersey Devils as unrestricted free agents for nothing. This is partly because Lamoriello always stuck to the old-school policies he established well before the salary cap era, such as not negotiating contracts during the season or not opening his wallet as widely as he should have in some cases. While Shero has a lot of pressure to show how serious the organization is about winning, I’m sure most of us are more confident having Ray handling Taylor Hall’s contract situation than Lou.
The New Jersey Devils are also in two different states of competitive and financial stability now, compared to the end of Parise’s time with the organization. Although New Jersey was still among the league’s perennial playoff contenders during Parise’s final years with the team (2010-2011 season aside), ownership was financially unstable and recently made a franchise-changing $100 million commitment to Ilya Kovalchuk.
While the Devils initially downplayed these reports, you have to think the prospect of re-signing with a team plagued by looming financial uncertainty that already has $100 million invested in one player was something that probably weighed considerably on Parise’s decision-making.
Current Devils ownership has given the organization a stable financial foundation. They even appear willing to give Shero whatever he needs to succeed.
This brings us to how different Taylor Hall’s New Jersey Devils are to Zach Parise’s, along with why Parise ultimately signed with Minnesota.
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While Parise ultimately cited a desire to return back home, the Devils were a relatively old team with a barren prospect cupboard and projected to be tight on cap space for years (especially with Parise signed). With goaltender Martin Brodeur being in his 40s after 2012 and no viable successors within the organization—if Parise re-signs, the Devils probably don’t have the cap space to make the Cory Schneider trade—their prospects of long-term success were probably more limited than Devils fans wanted to admit at the time (myself included).
Taylor Hall, on the other hand, is the centerpiece of a young fast team with a promising foundation in place. Yes, the Devils are still rebuilding and took a considerable step back in 2018-19. That is why this summer is going to be paramount for Ray Shero. Cap space won’t be a factor with re-signing Hall and between prospects, tradable roster players and draft picks, Shero has a lot at his disposal to improve his team enough to make a long-term commitment reassuring for his franchise player.
Yes, we’ve set high expectations for the Devils—and have been disappointed both times—going into the 2017 and 2018 offseasons, but the moves Shero didn’t make the last two summers has essentially allow him to secure his star player long-term without some of the factors that attributed to Parise’s departure.