Before prize draftee Adam Larsson plays a game, he already has proven he’s a team player, Devils style.
The Devils’ veterans should be grateful to the fourth overall pick. By foregoing between $1-2 million in bonus opportunities this season, the 18-year-old defenseman probably saved someone’s job.
Larsson took the unusual route of sacrificing performance bonuses to sign his three-year entry contract yesterday at $925,000 per season. Bonuses would count against the salary cap, the Devils’ constant enemy, which they still likely will exceed when Zach Parise’s deal is settled.
“I didn’t want the bonuses because no one else has them [on the Devils]. I don’t want to have pressure on myself because of bonuses,” Larsson said yesterday. “It was all my decision and my family’s. It feels just right.”
It was music to the ears of general manager Lou Lamoriello, who has convinced players like Martin Brodeur, Scott Stevens and Patrik Elias to take wallet hits for the team.
“He deserves all the credit in this,” Lamoriello said.
The Devils hit yet another jackpot on this one. After moving up from the eighth pick to fourth by winning the draft lottery, they were able to grab the player some believed was the best in last month’s draft. Then they avoided granting the bonuses that have become standard for top picks.
“We do not have any individual bonuses in any player contract, and never had it [recently],” Lamoriello said. “That was established a couple of years after I came here [in 1987]. I am not a believer in rookie bonuses in the CBA, yet everyone gets them.
“He does not want to be different from the other players in that locker room,” Lamoriello said. “It took a while to come to the conclusion that it is in the best interest of everyone — the player, the team, everyone.”
Lamoriello said last month he is looking for Larsson to make the big club this season. He would not answer whether Larsson would have had to return to Sweden if he had not agreed to yield the bonus packages.
“Getting signed by the Devils is what I wanted all the time,” Larsson said. “It’s like a dream come true.”
By signing Larsson before yesterday’s 5 p.m. deadline, the Devils avoided having to pay Larsson’s Swedish team, Skelleftea, an extra $100,000 for the right to negotiate for another month.
Larsson was the top-ranked European skater in last month’s draft and regarded by some as the best player in the draft. He was passed over by the Oilers, Avalance and Panthers, offensively-challenged teams who went for forwards. The Devils used their lottery luck to make Larsson their highest pick since taking Scott Niedermayer third in 1991.
Lamoriello had a good couple of days. On Thursday, he traded out-of-favor forward Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond to Calgary for a fifth-round pick and then brought fan favorite Cam Janssen back to New Jersey as an unrestricted free agent.
He also signed 34-year-old enforcer Eric Boulton yesterday. Boulton played six seasons with Atlanta after four with Buffalo and has 1,150 penalty minutes in 549 NHL games. He had a hat trick Dec. 18 in Atlanta’s 7-1 victory over New Jersey, one of the last straws of John MacLean’s coaching tenure.
Defenseman Matt Taormina, 24, said the Devils extended his qualifying offer beyond yesterday’s deadline to enable further negotiation. Taormina was the hit of last year’s camp and early season, earning a spot on defense and the power play for 17 games and tallying three goals and two assists before he broke his ankle in practice.
The signings likely leave $5 million in cap space for the Devils, who still have to account for Parise, going to club-requested and thus binding arbitration. He likely will earn at least $6 million. Lamoriello said earlier this month he would have to make subtractions from his roster, but Larsson may make the deductions less painful.