Holik to New Jersey
New Jersey has signed forward Bobby Holik to a one-year, $2.5-million contract.
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Rich Hammond has covered the Kings, on a full-time or part-time basis, since the 2000-01 season. He was the beat writer for the entire John Torchetti era and has witnessed Bob Miller singing country music in a Nashville honky-tonk bar. A native of Los Angeles, Rich has worked at the Daily News since 1999 and also serves as the paper's deputy sports editor. E-mail Rich at rich.hammond@dailynews.com.
Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews.com.
that pretty much seems like a nostalgia deal. i don't think holik is worth that much now.
Devils tried to keep Holik years ago and even offered him 5 years/41 million to stay. Luckily the Rangers outbid them (5/45), but the Devils were never quite able to replace his size and nasty demeanor.
Ideally, Holik is the "4th" line center but if the playoffs showed anything, the winning teams were able to ice four useful lines. The Devils maybe had 1.5 going into the playoffs last year.
2.5 seems like overpayment, but it's only on a one year term. And with the cap at 56 million, an "average" player is 2 million nowadays. Holik can still win 60% of his faceoffs as well which was something the Devils were missing.
Just wish the Devils would have kept Rafalski instead of signing Vishnevski (1.8) and Salvador (2.9) to long term deals.