The New Jersey Devils have only been in off-season mode for a few days now, but there's no shortage of news, speculation and intriguing topics to discuss. Today, I'll touch on quite a few of them.

- Devils President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello did not notify the NHL that they will forfeit their first round pick this year by the deadline yesterday, which means the Devils will pick 29th overall Friday, June 22nd in Pittsburgh. I'll admit I was thinking they had to give it up by the 2013 draft so it made little sense at first, but when I realized the Devils don't have to forfeit the pick until 2014 it made a lot more sense. Here are a few reasons why:

1. The Devils have quite a few solid defenseman coming through the system and a few good forwards and goaltenders, but they're not exactly stacked full. Keeping the first round pick will allow them to add another solid prospect to the system and help get some more high end talent in the system.

2. The Devils have some good, young talent for sure, but they're an older team. A lot of guys only have a couple more good season left in them before their play significantly declines or they retire. Keeping the pick will allow the Devils to bring another solid prospect into the system that could be ready to replace one of these said players in a year or two when their play declines and/or they retire.

3. New Jersey is a very good team and they had somewhat of a re-tooling year last year. Nobody anticipates them being a lottery team in the next couple years, so the talent level of this year's player or who they could get in 2013 or 2014 likely won't be too different. It's also worth noting whoever they draft this year could be NHL ready by the 2013-14 or 2014-15 season while if they wait a year or two to make the pick they'll likely have to wait a couple years before that player makes any sort of impact. That's not worth waiting for, especially because Lamoriello probably won't even be around then.

- Zach Parise reportedly told members of the media today that he wants to return to the team next season, and that he will not sign with the New York Rangers if he does end up leaving the Devils. Rangers fans can wake up from their dreams now.

Sticking with Parise, I reached out to his agent Wade Arnott yesterday and have not heard back from him at this point. He's usually pretty careful about what information he gives out, especially when it comes to dealing with Parise and the Devils so this isn't much of a surprise to me.

- Bryce Salvador and Petr Sykora are two veteran pending free agents who may or may not be back with the Devils next year. Both say they would like to stay, but whether they do or not remains to be seen. I hope to touch base with both their agents, Carlos Sosa and Allan Walsh, over the next few days.

- Pete DeBoer officially confirmed that Ilya Kovalchuk was playing nowhere close to 100 percent in the playoffs. Not really news to most of us, but I figured I'd put this in here.

- A couple of fans have asked me if I think the Devils will take a run at Justin Schultz July 1st. The answer to that would be yes, every team in the NHL will, but I don't think he'll sign in New Jersey. I think Philadelphia, Edmonton or Vancouver are more likely destinations.

- I'll go more in-depth about possible candidates the Devils will use their 29th overall pick on in the next week or so, but in the mean time you should head over to TheHockeyGuys.net to check out the staff's collaborated top-60 rankings plus in-depth writeups on about 10 of the top draft eligible players currently playing in the OHL written by yours truly.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Follow me on twitter @ToddCordell.

TheHockeyGuys.net

Email: [email protected]