The New Jersey Devils had brought Kevin Labanc in on a Professional Tryout (PTO). He hoped to stick around with the club once training camp ended. Even though he did not join the team in Prague, Czechia, Labanc was making a solid case to make the club.
Labanc recorded six goals and one assist in four games with the Devils. He was doing it mostly without the varsity lineup. His last couple of games he played were this past week, and the main roster was already in Czechia. Devils President and General Manager Tom Fitzgerald did not lie. He gave every opportunity to make the team. However, with the Devils up against the salary cap, they could not pay him to stay.
Devils Will Give Kevin Labanc Every Chance to Make the Roster
So on Saturday night, after the Devils beat the Buffalo Sabres by a score of 3-1, the Columbus Blue Jackets came calling. The Blue Jackets announced they had offered Kevin Labanc a one-year, one-way deal worth the league minimum of $775,000. Labanc signed it, knowing he would start in the NHL immediately.
But why couldn’t the Devils afford to sign him to a similar contract? Well, first off, they did not have the cap space. Let’s go back to the Dawson Mercer deal. He signed a three-year deal with an annual average of $4 million. To begin with, the Devils only had a salary cap of $4.7 million. Mercer’s new salary left the Devils with $700,000 in cap space, according to PuckPedia.com. Again, that was the figure before the team started over in Europe.
They currently have $26,103 in cap space before submitting their final roster on Monday evening. Tom Fitzgerald still has salary cap gymnastics to do to make the roster official before the home opener on October 10th. However, according to Frank Seravalli of DailyFaceoff.com, if he signed Labanc to the same contract, the Devils would need to put him on waivers and into the AHL before recalling him to make the money work.
Jacob Markstrom Proves Why He Was The Perfect Fit for the Devils
While nobody signed him in the off-season, there was a good chance someone might have picked him off waivers. Either way, the Devils lose a player that could have added depth scoring to their lineup.
Kevin Labanc still has a lot of hockey left to give. Unfortunately, it will not be for the Devils but for a divisional opponent, the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This was similar to the start of the 2011-12 season when the Devils brought Anton Stralman in on a PTO. The organization intended to sign him, but he got a better offer from their Hudson River Rival, the New York Rangers, so Stralman went there.
The New Jersey Devils still have some tough roster decisions ahead. However, Kevin Labanc proved to many naysayers during the preseason that he can still play in the NHL. Maybe the Devils will revisit Labanc at the trade deadline to make an impact at playoff time.
