A Deal for the Devils

I wrote my boy The Crappy One when the news broke that the Devils might be sold. He told me to stop channeling my inner Fox News and using scare tactics to get him going. Well, Tom Gulitti at the Bergen Record did a lot of great news and uncovered the truth. Apparently Jeff Vanderbeek, the principle owner is not going to sell his stock in the team. It is the secondary owners, Brick City Hockey LLC, that are looking to sell their stock.

The original fear for any Devils fan is how the sale will effect the team. Well, according to Gulitti, Brick City's share would be packaged with the team's arena rights. With the team just in the 3rd year of a 30 year lease at the Prudential Center, their is no chance they will be leaving. In fact, the NHL has no concern that they will leave.

So that is great news. Even if they were to somehow move to Seattle so I could watch them, I could never feel ok about it. The Devils are New Jersey's team. They won 3 Cups in the past 15 years. They can't move.

Still, a sale is a terrible thing right now. Even though the Devils have won 8 of 10 (including a nice win over the Rangers), they still suck. The season is lost and for the first time since the late 80's the franchise is without direction. If I'm Zach Parise, I take a look at the team and am unsure if I want to re-sign. The team has burned through what seems to be 10 coaches in the past decade. They just signed Ilya Kovalchuk to a cap crippling contract that the GM was not sold on. Marty Brodeur is old and about to retire. Their is a considerable talent void. And while I hate to admit it, they play in Newark. Add in the fact that the sale of the team will present major off the ice distractions, I have to think there is no chance he re-signs with us.

That would be crippling because our only chance to be relevant again in a few years is to have both Kovalchuk and Parise in Jersey for a long time. They need to be happy and their needs to be a positive aura around the team. Selling the team is not a way to get there.