New Jersey Devils: Expectations For Pavel Zacha’s Three-Year Deal

After a day of uncertainty in NHL and KHL contracting negotiation balking, Czech forward Pavel Zacha finally caved into a three-year NHL contract after being a restricted free agent. Zacha’s overall deal will be worth $6.75 million with an average-annual value of $2.25 million a season.

After projecting a possible four-line forward depth chart going into pre-season, it currently looks like:

Taylor Hall– Nico Hischier– Kyle Palmieri

Nikita Gusev- Jack Hughes– Jesper Boqvist

Jesper Bratt– Travis Zajac– Wayne Simmonds

Miles Wood– Pavel Zacha-Blake Coleman

In this assessment after having watched Zacha for the last few seasons, he doesn’t seem to be a full-time center but more of a power forward winger. However Pavel does provide that extra center when one of the Devils forwards on his line is booted out of the face-off circle. One of the things having noticed Zacha working on in his game is that he’s finding his way on breakaways, shooting the puck a lot more, and that shot is becoming more accurate. Typically, if Zacha can fetch 23-34 points a season on the bottom six, this will propel a Devils team to playoffs.

Over the summer, Ray Shero has done an amazing job keeping  young guys like Jesper Bratt and Nikita Gusev around to help building skill and talent around each of the 3 center cogs in Hischier, Hughes, and Zajac. Having a forward like Miles Wood with speed, size, grit, and talent should provide a ton of bravado on opposing goaltenders dealing with very tall, fast, and physical players all game long.

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With a veteran like Wayne Simmonds around, who is the true definition of “bravado” is that pain in the keister you want Zacha to learn from. Simmonds is tall, physical, brash, and skilled. If Wayne Simmonds can mentor Zacha and Wood together this season in getting puck battles won along the boards, behind the net, and in front of goalies, then we should see Zacha become totally worth his annual salary.

Big question is, “what would occur if Zacha’s line becomes very dominant?”. That means guys like Bratt, Gusev, and Taylor Hall can all make it a living nightmare for opposing goaltenders. In todays game, teams still need guys like Pavel Zacha for the big physical build, and their speed to become an asset in the playoffs too. When you Have the top 3 lines going in bursts of speed and winning puck battles, and corroding opposing defenses this will make it even easier to score goals.

With Pavel under contract for the next three seasons, he should improve himself on the bottom six. Having seen what the St. Louis Blues did last playoff run was that they had a good blend of bottom-six forwards. Most of those forwards were heavy footed but physical, and smart enough to make Tuuka Rask and his defense lose at home in Boston for The Stanley Cup.

Guys like Pavel Zacha are still vital in today’s game, even though we maybe harsh critics of him at times. To realize when a young forward is slowly blooming into a really decent bottom-six forward is what a team needs when you have a mix of really good top six and top-nine forward depth. Not every Devils team is going to be filled with Halls, Boqvists, Hischiers, and Hughes on every line. However, strategically when Coach Hynes unleashes the first two lines other teams will get more tired defensively. Once the Pavel Zacha line with maybe Miles Wood will lead to those “garbage goals” that are the feast or famine points in a game that lead to a games outcome.

Honestly sure it’s hard to digest the three years, $6.75 million contract, but a lot of RFA’s who have re-signed are getting paid more for “future earnings potential.” It’s both a bet of near and longer term pay compensation that fans need to understand. In a more perfect world Zacha could’ve just went for 2 years 1.80 million dollars annual average but with the KHL talks it raised Pavel’s price up to 2.25 million for Shero to re-sign Zacha to come to a 3 year contract.

Going into the next 3 seasons the expectations for Pavel are as a forward to score between 23-35 points, win more than 50% of the face-offs, and shoot between 9.99-14% on net along with winning a lot of board battles to gain puck possession. If Pavel can follow this simple recipe he can help this New Jersey Devils team become a true force to be reckoned with for 82 games and beyond.