New Jersey Devils: Is Pavel Zacha’s Contract Negotiation Going To Last Into Camp?

The New Jersey Devils are just about done with their offseason, but there is still one last thing to do. They need to re-sign former 1st-round pick Pavel Zacha.

Pavel Zacha may be one of the most controversial players on the New Jersey Devils. No, he isn’t controversial because he takes cheap shots on the ice. And no, he isn’t controversial because he calls out the head coach or gives a crazy quote in the locker room. No, Zacha is controversial simply because he was taken sixth overall in the 2015 NHL Draft.

That makes this season’s negotiation very, very interesting. This is a player taken by the former regime, but one that clearly has a ton of talent. Now, he’s been pasted by 15 players in that 1st round. (Go back and look, there are 15 players that are without a doubt having a better start to their career.) Zacha might be a late bloomer, and he’s shown flashes of greatness, but flashes sometimes hurt more than they help because teams know they can’t do anything with said player.

Well, now Zacha is a restricted free agent. The Devils have to figure out the value they can live with after a disappointing first few years. They have to have some hard conversations with a player that they likely hoped they could have delayed for another year or two. Sorry, that’s not how the NHL works. With three-year entry-level contracts, players have to face their value pretty early in their career.

It is now August 13th, and Zacha is the only player on the Devils that’s unsigned (outside some likely AHL players). He’s slated to go into the season as a number-four center. Although he’d be a really good player at that position, how much is that actually worth?

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This is a player that was supposed to take over as the number-one center when Travis Zajac went down two seasons ago. He was supposed to be the second-line center behind Nico Hischier for all eternity. Now, he’s on the last Devils line, and we all agree that’s the right move (unless you want to change his position). Can the Devils give decent money to a center with very little ability to move up? Even if Zacha blows it out of the water this year, head coach John Hynes isn’t going to put Jack Hughes on the fourth line for Zacha. He’s kind of stuck.

Because of this, this contract negotiation could go longer than we expect. The Devils did show they were willing to pay for depth, giving Connor Carrick and Mirco Mueller decent deals as restricted free agents. The Devils are willing to overpay a little bit for their guys, but what is Zacha? Both Carrick and Mueller were players Ray Shero traded for. Zacha was a guy he got from the Lou Lamoriello era.

This isn’t to say anything bad about Zacha. It’s just the truth. Shero fell in love with the Devils, and one of the children he adopted was Zacha. If he was going to give up on the player, he would have traded him a while ago. Shero doesn’t waste time on players if he doesn’t see a fit. Just ask Beau Bennett. However, that doesn’t mean he’s going to treat them like he treats the players he personally went after.

That’s why we could see a similar situation as we did with Miles Wood last year. This will never get to the point of William Nylander or what Mitch Marner might be this season. These aren’t even close to what’s happening there. However, putting a value on Zacha is honestly frustrating, which could cause negotiations to last until after training camp starts. We expect the deal to get done, but it could take longer than we’d like.