3 Reasons New Jersey Devils Should Avoid Vladimir Tarasenko

His Contract

The big issue with Tarasenko isn’t that his contract is $7.5 million on the salary cap. There are a few other issues at play here. For one, his contract costs $9.5 million in actual dollars. That’s actually fine as well. The Devils have plenty of cash after coming well below the salary cap last season even without the ticket revenue.

The real problem here is the Devils can lose Tarasenko for absolutely nothing in two seasons. That means if Tarasenko is actually back to his old self, and the Devils want to be the second half of his career, they need to prove that they are a winning franchise in the next two seasons. We remember what happened when the Devils tried this trick with Taylor Hall. They made multiple moves to try to appease Hall, but none of them worked and they had to trade Hall to the highest bidder.

Devils fans are over this era where the only thing to look forward to is the trade deadline. It was great when we were wondering how Pat Maroon and Michael Grabner fit with a playoff roster instead of which team is willing to give us a first-round pick for Kyle Palmieri and what the Devils have to add to the deal to make it happen. Tarasenko will be another folly of this if the Devils cannot figure their situation out before then. Even if they have a bad first season with Tarasenko, he could want out just as quickly.