- Tom Gulitti of The Record: GM Ray Shero and Adam Larsson’s agent, J.P. Barry, had planned to have some serious talks this week, but were sidetracked by the Lou Lamoriello news. The new plan is for the sides to talk today and tomorrow, and both sides are optimistic that a long-term deal will get done before Wednesday’s hearing.
“Ray and I have been talking throughout,” Barry said Thursday. “It got delayed this week, which now I understand why. We’re going to talk Friday, Saturday and we’ve been trying to work on something longer term here. Because we know the (arbitration) cases and we know the (salary) ranges. So, if can’t do the long-term deal, we’ll flip over to trying to settle the (arbitration) and I think we’ll be able to do that.
“We’re making some progress on something longer-term, so we’re just going to keep going hard on that Friday and Saturday. So, this weekend is huge for us.”
They have been working on a five- or six-year deal that could be in the $24 million range. A deal would buy three years of unrestricted free agency.
Pavel Zacha’s enter-level deal likely won’t get done until closer to the August 15th deadline, and Shero isn’t worried about it.
“The deadline is the deadline,” Shero said. “So much has been made of this. The only important thing to me is trying to sign the player so he has eligibility to play in the league this year. A lot of factors go into that. … Pavel, I’ll be in touch with him and Patrik in the next few days and there’s plenty of time to get him signed. We’ll have some more discussions as to where we are. It’s just the normal stuff we’re going through.”
With Lamoriello leaving the organization, the Devils don’t feel the need to find a president replacement.
“Our thoughts are that we are in good shape and status quo,” Harris said. “We don’t really feel the need for a president, and we are very excited about working with Ray and moving forward.”
- Brendan Savage of MLive: Red Wings RFA Tomas Jurco told a website in Slovakia that he is close to signing a two-year deal. According to a source though, the sides aren’t close on a deal. The report on Hokejportal.net said it was an $800,000 per year deal.
“Club gave the proposal, there is much room to negotiate,” Jurco said in a rough translation from a story by Pavol Rajtar. “It will only be a minor change. As I said, we’re almost at the end.”
Source said that sides aren’t close after Jurco hired a new agent.