With Zach Parise leaving the New Jersey Devils to head home and sign a 13-year contract with the Minnesota Wild, Lou Lamoriello and the Devils are now surrounded by many questions. What's next for the Devils? Who will replace Parise's offense? Who will be the new Captain? I'll take a stab at answering those questions and touch on some other Devils related topics in today's blog.

- First off, I'll start with some news. The Devils have signed forward Krys Barch to a two-year contract. Barch, in case you're not familiar with him, is a tough son of a gun. With literally every other team in the division adding a tough guy or two to their roster, the Devils needed to bulk up a bit. I'm not sure on how much money he will earn, but I'll guess around 750 thousand dollars.

- Lamoriello said yesterday on conference call that you can't replace a guy like Zach Parise, and he's right. You can replace his offense, defense or work ethic with certain different players, but it's extremely rare to find one guy with his talent, attention to detail, work ethic and leadership. He's a special player, and I wish him nothing but the best in Minnesota. The Devils will add a couple pieces here and there and move on without him, but you can't deny that his loss hurts the team.

Sticking with Parise, a lot of people have been comparing Kovalchuk's contract (15 years, 6.6 cap hit) with Parise's contract (13 years, 7.53) and I think that's just silly. When Kovalchuk signed with the Devils, the salary cap was almost 10 million dollars lower than it is now. Had Kovalchuk signed now, he would have made as much or more than Parise.

- With Parise gone, the Devils now need a new Captain. Given the fact that Kovalchuk is locked up for a long, long time and has experience with the "C" on his jersey, I'd have to think he's the favorite. Bryce Salvador could be a good candidate, too. There was some talk about maybe giving it to Travis Zajac, but given the fact he's an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season, it's probably not a good idea to give it to him and risk losing your Captain to free agency two years in a row.

- As I said above, losing Parise is huge, but the Devils are still a good team and are still capable of scoring goals. They still have Kovalchuk, Zajac, Patrik Elias, Adam Henrique, David Clarkson, Dainius Zubrus and Jacob Josefson up front to produce offense. Mattias Tedenby has shown he is capable/has the skill set to produce at the NHL level, so if he can bulk up this summer he could provide some offense as well. There's also the possibility of Petr Sykora, who scored 21 goals last season, returning.

- Should Lamoriello and the Devils look to add some more offense via free agency, there are a couple options out there.

Alexander Semin is a guy I would look at. He takes a lot of crap from the media but I would gladly take a shot at bringing him in. He's good friends with Kovalchuk and has experience playing on a line with him on Russia's team in International Tournaments. People question his work ethic and attention to detail, but I think Kovalchuk, Elias, Pete DeBoer and the rest of the crew could help fix him up if need be. Remember, a lot of people said the same things about Kovalchuk when he came to New Jersey and look at him now.

Speaking of Semin, I contacted his agent, Mark Gandler, today and all he would tell me is that Semin would sign with an NHL franchise. He wouldn't comment on what team, or if anything was close.

Another guy I would look at is Peter Mueller. He has a history of injuries, but when healthy he can undoubtedly produce at the rate of a top-6 forward. If the Devils can bring him in cheap, he would definitely be a good addition.

- If the Devils want to go the trade route to bring in a top-6 forward, they could look at Bobby Ryan of Anaheim. The asking price would be very high, though. Anaheim is looking for a 2nd line center in any potential Ryan trade. They would like a few other good pieces, as well. As I said a few weeks back, it would take something such as Henrique / Zajac, Jon Merrill, Alex Urbom / Eric Gelinas and another roster player, solid prospect or draft pick to land him. That's a pretty big price.

I highly doubt Rick Nash is an option. He makes 7.8 million dollars per season, and at this time the Devils aren't even on the list of teams he would accept a trade to.

- A lot of people have been worried that with 8 NHL defenseman signed, Adam Larsson would be the odd man out on the Devils blue line at times this season. Lamoriello, however, confirmed that Larsson will be a regular from this point on via conference call yesterday. As I said last week, whether someone is traded or not, he'll be a regular all season.

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

Follow me on twitter @ToddCordell.

TheHockeyGuys.net

Email: [email protected]