Devils officially sign Peters, Robbie Nieds gets $1 million

September 25, 2009   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

Lost in the hulabaloo of a certain ex-Devils defenseman’s brother coming to play for the team, the Devils also officially inked Andrew Peters to a two-year deal for about the NHL minimum ($500k a season).  Even though I’m not high on Peters, he does serve a purpose – especially in games against the Rangers and Flyers, not to mention against other East heavyweights like Georges Laroque and Colton Orr, to name a couple.  And yes he is a better fighter than Pierre Luc-Letourneau Leblond, who’s also a bit of a one-dimensional enforcer and now it seems as if Mr. Leblond will be going back to Lowell since Peters signed a multi-year one-way deal.  Still, I thought the days of having a designated goon who can’t play hockey were passing by in this new NHL.

As far as the Rob Niedermayer signing for a year and $1 million per which Derek already wrote about, I can’t say I’m in love with it.  It seriously took Lou this long to know we needed a center?  Cheap options like Manny Maholtra and Dominic Moore - who were both also on the market for months - could have been had and both are far better at the center position, while Robbie’s a past-his-prime wing who lines up at C with a faceoff percentage similar to Shaq’s free-throw shooting percentage.  I know the conspiracy theorists say it sets it up rather nicely for Scott to come back somehow, but I don’t buy it.  It’s not as if the Ducks (even without Chris Pronger) will be bad enough that Bryan Murray will need to dump him at the deadline, and salary’s not prohibitive since Scotty’s on a one-year deal. 

I guess the last straw for our GM came during last night’s preseason game when Jacques Lemaire actually used Jay Pandolfo at center for a game, simply because he won’t put Brian Rolston in the middle come hell or high water.  Of course Lemaire knows the player pretty well seeing as he’s coached Rolston almost his whole career, and there was nobody else that apparently merited a look - or could physically play since the flu is going around. 

In this case though things do come full circle, for Rob was on the Ducks when Scott’s Devils beat them in the 2003 Finals and six years later the two brothers have switched teams and coasts (after Scott’s successful tenure in Anaheim got Rob his Cup).  I guess Robbie and Peters signing answers two of the roster questions and most positions now appear to be set – if not the actual lines they play on - other than the final two defense spots and maybe one more wing/center spot.