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On Stefan Noesen's one-year extension with the New Jersey Devils |
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Follow me on Twitter @ToddCordell
Ray Shero scratched a couple items off his to-do list on Tuesday.
Beyond signing Blake Coleman to a three-year contract, he also extended Stefan Noesen for another year.
Noesen, like Coleman, is coming off a 13 goal, 25+ point season in which he spent a lot of time playing on the shutdown line.
Impressively, 25 of Noesen's 27 points were scored at 5v5. That ranked him 4th on the Devils and, league-wide, ahead of notables like Patric Hornqvist, Wayne Simmonds, Ryan O'Reilly and Jonathan Drouin.
The Devils also garnered surprisingly good results with Noesen on the ice. They were much better with him than without him.
So why did the Devils only give him a year?
Well, this buys them some time. Noesen is still a restricted free agent next summer so the Devils don't have to worry about competing for his services and losing any leverage.
If he can duplicate last season's success, he'll get a multi-year deal at a similar price. If he can't, well, the Devils can rest easy knowing they didn't commit too much to someone who isn't worth it.
Coleman is a better chance generator, a heavily used penalty killer, and he could have tested free agency as soon as next summer. It always made sense to give him more term, and a tad more money, so I'm not surprised this is how things played out.
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