New Jersey Devils: Pavel Zacha Plays Wrong Card With Ray Shero

The New Jersey Devils have a surprisingly contentious negotiation going on with Pavel Zacha. His threat to go to the KHL did not go over well.

The New Jersey Devils are now embroiled in the most interesting restrict free agent negotiation in all of the NHL. Just one day ago, this was the most boring negotiation. We all basically thought there were simple money issues to work out between Ray Shero and Pavel Zacha, but today we learned it was much more than that.

Multiple reporters say that Zacha says there is an agreement in place between himself and Avangard of the Kontinental Hockey League. The KHL is the main league in Russia, and is widely considered as the second best league in the world. It’s also widely considered severely worse than the NHL.

This feels like a power play gone really, really wrong. This sounds like Zacha, who we have to remember is still just 22 years old, tried to pull a fast one to get his negotiations moving quicker, but all he did was make his boss really, really mad.

This is how mad Zacha made GM Ray Shero:

Tell us how you really feel Ray. That is one of the most vicious responses we’ve seen to any GM negotiating with a player in any sport ever. Things are reportedly getting contentious in both the Patrik Laine and Mitch Marner negotiations. We have not heard Kevin Cheveldayoff and Kyle Dubas speak out of line at all, despite going into September without their star players.

The problem here is that Laine and Marner are not Zacha, and those GMs are not Ray Shero. This is a completely different situation that honestly probably should have been fixed by now. The Devils have shown they are willing to slightly overpay to keep their guys here. Will Butcher was given a nice deal. Both Connor Carrick and Mirco Mueller were probably given slight overpayments.

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Yet, with Zacha it seemed like a deal was not getting done. That’s okay. This team understands. Just last season, Miles Wood negotiated for a new deal going into the preseason, and when he finally signed his four-year deal he was welcomed back with open arms.

That might not be how this ends for Zacha. Wood, from what we gathered, ever threatened to play for another franchise or league. It may be a little different since Wood is American, but he could have demanded a trade or something. He stayed patient, and eventually got the deal he wanted. Zacha seemed to feel the pressure knowing that training camp is a week away. This seemed like a Hail Mary move.

Zacha might have gone past the point of no return. We know that Shero is huge on keeping everything in-house. Zacha’s team has to be the one that went to the media with this newly agreed upon deal. When Avengard was asked about the deal, they called the talks preliminary. There’s no real reason for a Devils source to leak this information. This is a move to put pressure on Shero.

However, there is no pressure on Shero. He drafted Jack Hughes, traded for P.K. Subban and Nikita Gusev, and signed Wayne Simmonds. You think he’s going to get flack for losing out on the last bad image of the Lou Lamoriello era? Zacha could be so much more than that, but if he leaves now he’ll always just be Lou’s last bust.

Then, on top of it all, the Devils hold his rights. The Devils gave Zacha a qualifying offer, so they hold his rights for this year. How long do they hold it after this? That part is a little confusing. If you remember, Ilya Kovalchuk considered returning to the NHL a year early, and the Devils owned his rights. They needed to trade Kovalchuk for him to play that season. Then, he turned 35 and he qualified to become a free agent. When it comes to drafted European players, teams usually hold rights for four years according to the current CBA. Honestly, we’re not entirely sure how long the Devils would hold Zacha’s rights, but based on what we see it’s more than two years that he agreed upon with this KHL club.

Shero seems hell-bent to make sure Zacha has a terrible time coming back to the NHL if he decides to leave. He said so himself. If Zacha makes this decision to leave, he needs to know he better dominate if he wants to return to the NHL. The league will easily forget about him.

There are some names on Avangard like Cody Franson and 2019 Devils draft pick Arseni Gritsyuk. He might do okay, but is this really the best move for his career? If Zacha truly is on the cusp like he showed he might be at the end of the season, it would be best to sign a bridge deal and work his butt off in the NHL. Signing a bridge deal in the KHL might mean spending the majority of your career in a Russian league. Maybe that’s okay for him since he’ll be closer to his native Czech Republic.

Either way, Zacha made all the wrong moves today. Threatening a move during negotiations is one thing, doing it in public could be a death blow for the Devils. Shero says he still wants to work things out with his center, but with Hughes, Nico Hischier and Travis Zajac on the team, he’s not exactly a necessity.