Best Ever New Jersey Devils Free Agent Signing

[Bleedred]

I have a hard time feeling bad for a guy who when all is said and done will have made over $50 million playing pro hockey. He could have chosen to sign anywhere. Clearly money was the most important factor, and I don't blame him one bit for that, but at the same time this is the avenue that HE chose and I don't feel bad for him.

It's like those people that say Bourque "deserved" a Cup. If Bourque wanted a Cup that badly he had plenty of opportunities to leave Boston. No one put a gun to his head. He's the one who ultimately chose to stay. Clearly he had other priorities.

If you want to get paid, go to a team that will pay you. If you want to win a Cup, go to a strong contender. If you want loyalty, stay with the team that drafted you. Clarkson made his choice, if he wasn't able to foresee the consequences of that choice then that's his problem.

I do agree that had Clarkson stayed in NJ things would be a lot different. Certainly never would have gotten 30 goals again, but some solid 35-45 point seasons with a strong goal split.

Well it was reported that Edmonton (and maybe even Columbus and Ottawa?) offered more than what Toronto offered. Supposedly they offered $6 million per year. I have a hard time believing that Ottawa offered $6 million a year though. It might have just been Edmonton that offered the $6 per and Ottawa and Columbus made other offers, similar to what Toronto did.

But he absolutely took more from Toronto than Lou was going to give him. Lou was probably offering him what he gave Clowe, and I wouldn't even be surprised if he offered him even less per year than what Clowe got. Like around $4 million or just a little bit over $4. Which is still a huge bullet dodged, as Clarkson is worth what your run of the mill 4th liner makes, when he's actually healthy these days. And while I do feel a little bad for him, he can enjoy the Tortosaurus and those imbeciles Jarmo and JD and the rest of their moron management team.

And he actually has a decent chance of passing Ryane Clowe this year, for more points scored since the start of the 13-14 season (AKA since he hasn't been a Devil) and in almost 100 more games played hahahahahahaha.

 

[Bleedred]

Clarkson broke 30 goals twice in his life. Once in juniors and once in the NHL. I don't know if he would've ever scored more than 20 without extreme luck. His 30 goal season was unbelievable as in I don't think it could have ever happened based on his lack of scoring in junior.

I still can't for the life of me figure out how the hell he got over $5 million per year for the maximum length he could receive and offers of $6 million per.

Yeah it was a poor UFA year, but he had no track record to speak of. He only scored 30 or more points twice, he scored over 18 goals once. He was on pace for to score over 20 goals and 30 points in the lockout season, but if you remember, he died out after scoring 10 goals in 14 games and only 5 for the rest of the 34 games in the season.

He pretty much got paid for one 30 goal season. A 30 goal season, in which he didn't even get 50 points! If he had the career that Clowe had up to that point, he'd absolutely be worth that money but he didn't have that kind of career.

So here were are 3 years later and Clarkson has scored as many points since leaving as Clowe did in his entire time here. Keep in mind that Clarkson has played 144 games since leaving and has scored 30 points, Clowe played 56 games and scored 30 points. And Clarkson also has a slightly higher AAV than Mike Cammalleri and is signed for one year longer and his contract length was two years longer!

 

[JimEIV]

I still doubt he would have ever reached 35-40 points again, or even 20 goals.

But maybe he's like Gomez, who seemed to ONLY play really good in New Jersey? But with Gomez, we only had 54 games in his second go around. Who knows if he would have continued that if he were brought back this past season?

Most likely not but Clarkson was a RW and he easily would've been our 2nd best RW for last 3 years. I always looked at him as sort of Randy McKay...McKay never put up big numbers here either but he was incredibly useful for a lot of years working as a complimentary player on the RW that could be effective on lines 1 through 4. That is how I saw David.

The big issue for Clarkson is he hasn't had the best of health for the last few years...That may have been the case no matter where he went but bad things seem to have a snowball effect and the first snowflake was going to Toronto.

 

[Billdo]

Expectations attached to his deal from Toronto killed him. As soon as he signed that deal and the Wendell Clark nonsense popped up he was done.

 

[sabremike]

In a weird way you could make a case that the best free agent signing in Devils history was actually another team signing a Devils RFA (Blues signing Shanny).

 

[JimEIV]

In a weird way you could make a case that the best free agent signing in Devils history was actually another team signing a Devils RFA (Blues signing Shanny).

LOL. True.

 

[Bleedred]

Expectations attached to his deal from Toronto killed him. As soon as he signed that deal and the Wendell Clark nonsense popped up he was done.

''He's coming!'' or whatever that stupid thing said.

That was the lamest and most stupid marketing I've ever seen in the NHL.

 

[MadDevil]

''He's coming!'' or whatever that stupid thing said.

That was the lamest and most stupid marketing I've ever seen in the NHL.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Most likely not but Clarkson was a RW and he easily would've been our 2nd best RW for last 3 years. I always looked at him as sort of Randy McKay...McKay never put up big numbers here either but he was incredibly useful for a lot of years working as a complimentary player on the RW that could be effective on lines 1 through 4. That is how I saw David.

The big issue for Clarkson is he hasn't had the best of health for the last few years...That may have been the case no matter where he went but bad things seem to have a snowball effect and the first snowflake was going to Toronto.

I always said the exact same thing with the McKay comparison. That's always what I envisioned his role being. Glad I wasn't the only one.

Whichever way you want to go in defining a free agent, can't go wrong with Mad Dog! Will always be one of my all time favorites.

 

[MartyOwns]

I cringed 14 times reading that badge of nonsense. holy ****

 

[Triumph]

Most likely not but Clarkson was a RW and he easily would've been our 2nd best RW for last 3 years. I always looked at him as sort of Randy McKay...McKay never put up big numbers here either but he was incredibly useful for a lot of years working as a complimentary player on the RW that could be effective on lines 1 through 4. That is how I saw David.

The big issue for Clarkson is he hasn't had the best of health for the last few years...That may have been the case no matter where he went but bad things seem to have a snowball effect and the first snowflake was going to Toronto.

Randy McKay was a far better player than David Clarkson could ever hope to be. Clarkson was not a complementary player. He was a guy who gobbled up the puck on any line he was put on. If he wasn't scoring, the rest of the line wouldn't either. He was a disaster on any Line 1. Great on a line that struggled for offense, though, because there Clarkson's puckhog act was successful.

 

[njdevils1982]

and the herd ate that **** up

baa baa

 

[Emperoreddy]

In terms of the best FAs in franchise history, disregarding undrafted UFAs (and disregarding drafted UFAs who never played professionally for their drafting franchise, like Blandisi or Oduya), I'd have to identify Zubrus as the best. Also up there is Bob Carpenter. We haven't had much luck with UFAs.

With that criteria Zubs is definitely the best.

 

[The Wumpus]

The pool company hit the jackpot with this ad buy. Years from now they'll still be getting calls from HF Boards readers.

 

[Team Concept]

Bobby Carpenter was a UFA signing in 1993-1994 and played 6 seasons with the Devils and he was the third line checking center who Lemaire simply loved. He was a key contributor on the 1995 Stanley Cup team.

 

[Team Concept]

Another UFA signing from the past was goaltender Bob Sauve. The Devils don't get to the 1988 Wales Conference finals without backup goalie Bob Sauve who saved the Devil's ass in the 1988 playoff run when he saved a Ken Priestlay breakway to preserve a tie in Buffalo. He then won a couple of games in the playoffs to spell Sean Burke during that Cinderella run in 1988. Sauve signed as a UFA on July 9, 1987.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Nice mentions of Sauve and Carps

 

[Billdo]

I'd say Dean McAmmond or Ilka Pikkarainen. Or perhaps Andrew Peters or Eric Boulton.

 

[Devils Dominion]

I'd say Dean McAmmond or Ilka Pikkarainen. Or perhaps Andrew Peters or Eric Boulton.

Olescz?

 

[Zippy316]

I'd say Dean McAmmond or Ilka Pikkarainen. Or perhaps Andrew Peters or Eric Boulton.

McAmmond doesn't deserve to be in that group of players.

 

[Billdo]

Olescz?

Ah yes our Lord and Savior Rusty Olesz

 

[AfroThunder396]

Hey, watch it, McAmmond was ****ing awesome when he was here. He was my favorite 4th liner before Ryan Carter came along.

 

[Bleedred]

McAmmond doesn't deserve to be in that group of players.

Agreed.

McAmmond was a good 3rd/4th line guy for us that year, Rob Nieds wasn't bad either, as much as I wished we had acquired him about 4 years earlier instead.

Pikkarainen was a straight up dumbass, he was almost like a less skilled Tedenby. Remember when Lou hyped up his signing by saying something like "We're signing a mystery player tomorrow"? Now who here thought it was actually gonna be someone good? I bet it got some excited and then really bummed when they all found out who it was.

Peters and Boulton were trash, Barch was useless too but I don't remember him being the liability that the other two were. He was just a waste of a roster spot.

Olesz? Meh. I didn't really like that signing at all because I thought it was useless. I foresaw him not lasting more than that season before washing out of the league for good. Never thought it would only take a month though. I tried to be a little more positive about that signing though, and he fooled me a little bit with a couple of nice preseason games. The same preseason that Tedenby had a good game and scored on Lundqvist and Josefson must have put up at least a point per game in that same preseason.

 

[Bleedred]

Hey, watch it, McAmmond was ****ing awesome when he was here. He was my favorite 4th liner before Ryan Carter came along.

I know he was old (about 37 or 38) I remember when he played for our AHL team during the 04-05 lockout season. He was mostly a 4th liner for us but was used to go up against top lines for a while and played a lot of PK time.

But I don't understand how he didn't get one more year in the league as a 4th line player. I was hoping we'd bring him back but we wound up replacing him with I forgot who and signing Adam Mair or some **** to replace Rob Nieds with.

 

[Billdo]

Hey, watch it, McAmmond was ****ing awesome when he was here. He was my favorite 4th liner before Ryan Carter came along.

I actually liked McAmmond quite a bit too.