Best Ever New Jersey Devils Free Agent Signing

[Better Call Sal]

Leave Deano Machino out of that group!

 

[Triumph]

Rob Niedermayer was atrocious. I have no idea how Lou could trade for Kovalchuk that year and leave Rob Niedermayer as a regular player. He scored some goals early in the season but he got absolutely destroyed territorially, and it got worse as the season went on.

 

[The Wumpus]

MC Ammer was great.

That string of Peters/Boulton/Barch signings/buyouts was like Sideshow Bob stepping on the rakes over and over.

 

[BadFella]

I actually kind of agree with this.

So lets think of some of the best free agents, that had solid careers elsewhere before coming here.

is Mike Cammalleri the best? lol

Yes.

 

[Goodforyoursoul]

Surprised all the free agent signing talk and no ones mentioned al-mo.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Surprised all the free agent signing talk and no ones mentioned al-mo.

because he was a trade the first time

the 2nd time he only played like 30 games

 

[Bleedred]

Almo the trade the was awesome!

Mogilny 2.0 as a UFA was not so great. He played fine and produced decently, but there were stories of him being a locker room problem and Larry hinted at it.

I'm not sure if he was a complete cancer in the locker room but I think he was somewhat of a problem and the fact that he made a lot of money meant that he was the sacrificial lamb when Elias came back from hepatitis.

 

[MadDevil]

Funny enough the picture in his Wikipedia profile is of him in a River Rats jersey.

 

[njdevils1982]

Almo the trade the was awesome!

Mogilny 2.0 as a UFA was not so great. He played fine and produced decently, but there were stories of him being a locker room problem and Larry hinted at it.

I'm not sure if he was a complete cancer in the locker room but I think he was somewhat of a problem and the fact that he made a lot of money meant that he was the sacrificial lamb when Elias came back from hepatitis.

fedorov hit 1000 points before him as the first russian to do so and gave total respect to mogs... he said it wouldve been him if not for circumstances ... i think i was injury

on a side note , ovi is going to obliberate both them stats.... also, interesting that on draft day 'the russisn' through interpretator, said he wanted to be the best russuan player ever

 

[BenedictGomez]

I would have gone with Rafalski #1 and Madden #2, but both are good choices.

 

[Bleedred]

Funny enough the picture in his Wikipedia profile is of him in a River Rats jersey.

He kind of looks like Jordin Tootoo in that picture. First thing I thought was ''I don't remember Mogilny looking like Tootoo?'' but it was just that picture.

fedorov hit 1000 points before him as the first russian to do so and gave total respect to mogs... he said it wouldve been him if not for circumstances ... i think i was injury

on a side note , ovi is going to obliberate both them stats.... also, interesting that on draft day 'the russisn' through interpretator, said he wanted to be the best russuan player ever

I was a BIG Mogilny fan. Thought he was treated a little unfairly his second time here. Out of the 3 M's (4 if you include Matvisuck, who was signed the year before, right before the 04 lockout began in the summer before that) that we signed, Mogilny was the one I didn't think was that bad.

Matvisuck, McGillis, Malakhov, god help me!

I think Mogilny was a MUCH better player than he has went down in history as being. He isn't even really remembered by people who didn't catch most of his career, and he's really not even known about by as many fans who were not yet into the game when he was still playing. I thought I remembered him being the highest scoring NHL player of all time, who ended up in the minors playing in the AHL, at the time he was waived. I'm actually surprised he only scored 473 career goals, I swore it would be more. But he only played 990 career NHL games, so I guess it's not as surprising. Seemed like he played more, but injuries and a season and a half lost due to lockout made it less. He played for many years, but had a lot of seasons where he played way less than 82 because of injuries. I remember he had like 12 goals in the first 40 games of the season in 00-01 (maybe it was 15 or 16) and then wound up scoring 43 in 75 games that season. It was a reverse Clarkson from the most recent lockout season.

According to hockey reference, he had only 7 goals after 28 games into the 00-01 season and then scored 36 in the final 47 games of the season, to bring it to 43 goals in 75 games. I remember when Messier demanded that Mogilny's stick be measured to see if it was illegal, during an overtime game at MSG that season.

I have so many amazing memories of Mogilny, the break up after we took him back was a tough one.

 

[Bleedred]

on a side note , ovi is going to obliberate both them stats.... also, interesting that on draft day 'the russisn' through interpretator, said he wanted to be the best russuan player ever

Forgot to address this, I think he's still on pace for that though.

Because what better way to be the best Russian player of all time, than to actually play in the best league in Russia!

 

[New Jersey]

Ilya Kovalchuk

 

[Emperoreddy]

Ilya Kovalchuk

Trade. Not UFA

 

[New Jersey]

Trade. Not UFA

It was both. That summer of drama hasn't been purged from my memory yet.

(It was also blatant sarcasm.)

 

[LastWordArmy]

I would have gone with Rafalski #1 and Madden #2, but both are good choices.

we also had covered rafalski as a red wings top FA addition... with it so close this felt like honoring both.

 

[LastWordArmy]

Ilya Kovalchuk

By our rules, since he never played for another team inbetween when he was traded for and when he signed... we consider it a trade. Same as Alex Kovalev in montreal.

Just running out your contract and not leaving the team would mean that every player who signs two contracts with the same club becomes eligible for this, and it would be weird calling mario lemieux a penguins free agent signing, or martin brodeur as the devils free agent signing.