The Devils open training camp a week from today and there is no decision yet on whether the franchise’s all-time leading scorer Patrik Elias, still recovering from offseason surgery on his right knee, will be offered a contract for this season.
But general manager Ray Shero, who said he met with Elias last week, believes there is no artificial deadline for having to make a decision.
Elias spent the summer back home in the Czech Republic, where he began to skate lightly. He has since returned to New Jersey and has continued to skate on his own at Prudential Center.
“We want to make sure we’re on the same page on things, which is he’ll continue to skate on his own and we’ll kind of see where he is,” Shero said in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Record.
“There’s no decision on our end or his end. There’s certainly none to make at this point because, he, at this point, doesn’t know when he (can) start to push. When he does that, how’s it going to react? And we’ll see exactly where we are as a team at that point, anyway. So we’re going to keep an open mind both ways, but it’s great having Patrik around and I’m happy he’s back.”
Elias, 40, was limited to 16 games last season (two goals, six assists) and had surgery May 11 at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City under the care of Dr Riley Williams.
Shero said, at the time, the timetable for Elias’ recovery was four to six months.
“Either way, he had to have it done,” Shero said of the surgery. “He could have waited to have it done in the fall, and that would have ended any chance of him playing.”
Shero said Elias needs to begin to “push” his knee and “see how it reacts” before any meaningful discussion on his potential return can be had.
And, as Shero noted, it also is a case of whether there will be a roster spot available for him.
“The worst thing with a sore knee is to push something,” Shero said. “He knows his body pretty well. He’s in fantastic shape. He looks great. We’re talking about his knee here so whenever he gets to that point where he can push a little bit more and kind of see how it reacts, I think that’s where he’s got to get to and whether that’s at some point later on (maybe) he can rejoin us for practice and see how he does and see how the knee reacts. We haven’t really gotten to that point, either, because let’s just see how things go for him.
“There’s no deadline whatsoever,” Shero added. “We’ll just keep in communication with him and see how he’s feeling.”
Still, Shero referred to Elias as a “lifelong Devil” and said it was his understanding that, if Elias played this season, it would only be for the Devils and not another NHL team.
“The conversation we had at the end of the year, he’s told me that he wants to play for the Devils,” Shero said.
Elias has 408 goals and 617 assists in 1,240 career NHL regular-season games and has won two Stanley Cups with the Devils and gone to four Cup Finals.