2013 New Jersey Devils (Team/Player Discussion)- Offseason FA and trade talk Part V

[NJDevs26]

It's hilarous that so many guys played on the Devils then who I can't stand now. Parise-Langs-Gomez-Martin. Maybe Rupp too, I don't remember. And I still haven't forgiven Lukowich for not tackling Staal there lol

Haha I'll stick to the SCF game 1!

Just turned it on in time for the Devils game winning goal with 20 seconds left by Gomez!

Remarkably that game is less of a horror show than Chris Rooney's reffing.

 

[Bleedred]

If we didn't blow that game right there, then I bet that series is WAY more competitive than it was.

We almost stole one with 20 seconds left. How many times since have we played the Hurricanes both in the playoffs, and regular season where they've come back on us real late? Too many to remember.

 

[NJDevs26]

At least three, plus that other game in the 2009 regular season which was eerily prescient of Game 7 a couple months later that Stan referenced in the postgame afterward and Sutter basically told him to **** off.

And the late Holik penalty in Game 5 2002 before that which started our Carolina curse, when we were about to win that and go up 3-2 in the series.

 

[Bleedred]

At least three, plus that other game in the 2009 regular season which was eerily prescient of Game 7 a couple months later that Stan referenced in the postgame afterward and Sutter basically told him to **** off.

And the late Holik penalty in Game 5 2002 before that which started our Carolina curse, when we were about to win that and go up 3-2 in the series.

I always forget about that 02 series. We got Irbe yanked, and then made backup Kevin Weekes look like Hasek the next 2 games. Then POS Weekes **** the bed the next round, and Maurice went back to Arters Irbe. I bet that's the only playoff series Weekes ever won, and he didn't even play the whole series.

That honestly was the weakest cup losing team in a while from what I remember. Hasek and the Red Wings spit them out in 5 games.

 

[NJDevs26]

The irony is all anyone remembers about that series is the contreversy about Sykora sitting himself in Game 5 and getting traded after that. But that series was definitely there for the taking. After being down 2-0 in the series we actually chased Irbe twice and won both games in NJ big. In Game 5 we were up like 3-2 with less than two minutes left and Kerry Fraser had one of his overofficious moments calling a penalty on Holik (when most officials 'let them play' late) and the Canes scored the tying goal and won in OT. That killed us off and we had a dead*** 1-0 loss in Game 6.

 

[Bleedred]

The irony is all anyone remembers about that series is the contreversy about Sykora sitting himself in Game 5 and getting traded after that. But that series was definitely there for the taking. After being down 2-0 in the series we actually chased Irbe twice. In Game 5 we were up like 3-2 with less than two minutes left and Kerry Fraser had one of his overofficious moments calling a penalty on Holik and the Canes scored the tying goal and won in OT. That killed us off and we had a dead*** 1-0 loss in Game 6.

I actually expected us to lose that series, or at the most the one after in the second round 1. Team ran out of gas the year before so I didn't think they'd make it 3 years in a row. It worked out cause it refreshed them for the year after.

 

[NJDevs26]

I actually expected us to lose that series, or at the most the one after in the second round 1. Team ran out of gas the year before so I didn't think they'd make it 3 years in a row. It worked out cause it refreshed them for the year after.

Yeah and it got Pat Burns in too (they probably don't can Constantine if they win a round or two, then again it's Lou so who knows...with what Marty said in his book about Constantine being strange they might have canned him after anything short of another Finals appearance).

At the time though it was just a grinding, unhappy season. I was so ticked off over them getting Larry fired after two straight Finals appearances. Until the Langs mutiny that's as mad as I've ever been at the team. And the poor guy (Larry) having to come back as an assistant when Cunniff got sick. What other team does a fired head coach come back in the same season to be an assistant?

 

[Bleedred]

Yeah and it got Pat Burns in too (they probably don't can Constantine if they win a round or two, then again it's Lou so who knows...with what Marty said in his book about Constantine being strange they might have canned him after anything short of another Finals appearance).

At the time though it was just a grinding, unhappy season. I was so ticked off over them getting Larry fired after two straight Finals appearances. Until the Langs mutiny that's as mad as I've ever been at the team. And the poor guy (Larry) having to come back as an assistant when Cunniff got sick. What other team does a fired head coach come back in the same season to be an assistant?

It's funny that Cunniff was an assistant cause he also was our head coach in the early 90s. Ftorek also wound up coaching in the organization again after being fired, but it took a few years.

I think Constantine was one of those Cunniff/McVie/Herb Brooks experiments, though he didn't last nearly as long. I remember in the early 90s Lou firing coaches like 3 years straight with all those guys. Lemaire was the first one to stick. I thought Constantine sucked, despite the team waking up after Larry was fired. His system was stupid from what I remember. Totorella like shot blocking, just maybe not as severe.

 

[NJDevs26]

Haha you remembered right about Constantine (I also remembered everyone calling him KFC, though I doubt his actual middle name started with an F). I found the blurb from Marty's book talking about his system:

Constantine was a big departure for the Devils. His system of defensive points was a little peculiar, a little over the top, even for us, a team that was very focused on defense. A blocked shot, for example, was worth two points, and he wanted everybody diving to block pucks. At one point, we had to practice with foam rubber pucks because he wanted us to work on blocking shots so much. Robinson hadn't wanted anybody leaving their feet to block shots, so Constantine's approach was a drastic change. Even before we lost to Carolina, we had a pretty good idea Constantine wouldn't be sticking around.

 

[aboriginal]

i still need to give that book a read. i suck.

 

[Bleedred]

I actually have never read Marty's book. It's probably something that can keep my attention for a long period of time though. Never cared much for reading unless it's articles, or forums on the internet of course. I'll have to check out though.

I remember Marty saying he doesn't like blocking shots coming up a lot when talking about Volchenkov. He apparently said in his book, and it made sense. Under Constantine there were a lot of deflection goals caused by guys blocking shots. It happened A LOT after he started coaching us. The number of goals scored against that changed direction off one of our skaters blocking shots went up drastically.

NHL.com used to track zone time in each game. Like how much in a period was played in each teams zone, and then in the neutral zone. I remember reading them after games and seeing how the amount of time the game was played in our zone rose. We were playing games mostly in the other teams zone by a couple minutes per game, but it was the other way around after he took over. I purposely went to look at the game sheet cause I knew our in zone time went up. It was from all the standing around to block shots. Those games from that season are actually still archived.

 

[NJDevs26]

The book is worth reading, though outdated by now (since it was after '06). My only complaint is it does jump all over the place, it isn't exactly in chronological order.

Overall, there is a bit of interesting stuff in there. One Devils example is about how Marty was talking with Lou after the '02 Olympics and remarked how faceoffs were so important to Canada then not long after that the big trade for Nieuwendyk+Langs. There's other stuff about Lou too, about how he'll use Jacques Caron as a buffer to run things by Marty, and how Lou will ask Marty's opinion of a lot of different players at once without letting on which one(s) are of interest

On the other end of the scale, there were a lot of revealing behind the scenes nuggets about the '01 Finals too but I won't get into that lol

 

[Bleedred]

The book is worth reading, though outdated by now (since it was after '06). My only complaint is it does jump all over the place, it isn't exactly in chronological order.

Overall, there is a bit of interesting stuff in there. One Devils example is about how Marty was talking with Lou after the '02 Olympics and remarked how faceoffs were so important to Canada then not long after that the big trade for Nieuwendyk+Langs. There's other stuff about Lou too, about how he'll use Jacques Caron as a buffer to run things by Marty, and how Lou will ask Marty's opinion of a lot of different players at once without letting on which one(s) are of interest

On the other end of the scale, there were a lot of revealing behind the scenes nuggets about the '01 Finals too but I won't get into that lol

I'll have to check it out one day. Hopefully it's cheap haha!

And hopefully Marty is telling Lou what we need now and Lou provides! SCORING!

 

[Desert Devil]

Hopefully they edit the book once Marty hangs em up, and add the latter part of his career.

 

[Bleedred]

Hopefully they edit the book once Marty hangs em up, and add the latter part of his career.

Maybe another book about the last half of his career? He could talk about the Julien firing/puck firing incident too. As well as other interesting behind the scenes stuff like Mac's benching of Kovy, Langenbrunner's conflicts with Lemaire, and Pandolfo's problems with Lemaire too.

 

[Holtz My Bahls]

It took Pittsburgh 5 days to sign Malkin, Lou needs to wake the **** up already, I can't think of another team that loses so many players to Free Agency. So frustrating...

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

It took Pittsburgh 5 days to sign Malkin, Lou needs to wake the **** up already, I can't think of another team that loses so many players to Free Agency. So frustrating...

how do you know that we haven't signed all our guys yet? you raelly believe Lou has been just sitting on his ass the past 2 months since we last played?

plus Malkin can't technically sign until July 1.

 

[Holtz My Bahls]

how do you know that we haven't signed all our guys yet? you raelly believe Lou has been just sitting on his ass the past 2 months since we last played?

plus Malkin can't technically sign until July 1.

I'm sorry but it makes no sense that players would be signed and not announced, and I'm really starting to think he hasn't done anything yet. If I'm overreacting so be it, I'm sick of losing quality players for nothing.

 

[apice3*]

You do realize that we don't have a single player on our roster who we can say "how much?" to which they respond "9.5 million per year, max contract" and we say "okay."

Pittsburgh has two players like that. It's not the same thing.

There have been 3 UFA's we've lost in the last forever that have had success elsewhere:

Rafalski - Lou's fault
Niedermayer - offered max contract, he passed. His decision, not Lou's fault.
Parise - ridiculous contract that we couldn't match. His decision, not Lou's fault.

Lou's free agent signing and drafting have been meh as of late, but he's hardly at fault for our UFA's walking.

 

[Devils Trap]

I'm sorry but it makes no sense that players would be signed and not announced, and I'm really starting to think he hasn't done anything yet. If I'm overreacting so be it, I'm sick of losing quality players for nothing.

Lou is old school. He doesn't negotiate in the season, and normally will never announce anything until the playoffs are over . It's very possibly deals are done

 

[Holtz My Bahls]

Lou's fault or not it does not matter, we've lost countless players for nothing, if he'd negotiate during the freaking season we probably wouldn't lose so many of our FA's.

 

[Mogwai211]

Lou is old school. He doesn't negotiate in the season, and normally will never announce anything until the playoffs are over . It's very possibly deals are done

True. We can question him here and say he's getting old, etc. etc., but there's a reason Lou is one of the most respected GM's in the professional sports world, let alone the NHL. He's a manager's manager, and he's not going to show his hand...ever.

 

[Edmonton East]

You do realize that we don't have a single player on our roster who we can say "how much?" to which they respond "9.5 million per year, max contract" and we say "okay."

Pittsburgh has two players like that. It's not the same thing.

There have been 3 UFA's we've lost in the last forever that have had success elsewhere:

Rafalski - Lou's fault
Niedermayer - offered max contract, he passed. His decision, not Lou's fault.
Parise - ridiculous contract that we couldn't match. His decision, not Lou's fault.

Lou's free agent signing and drafting have been meh as of late, but he's hardly at fault for our UFA's walking.

Gionta has been fine as well, and that was Lou's fault. I would also blame him for Parise 90% (if their were no ownership issues). If not for the ownership financial issues, it would have been inexcusable to not go all in on extending him well before his contract was up like every other NHL GM does with top players.

Statistically, we are the 2nd worst drafting team over the last 15 years in terms of NHL success rate. There was a thread in the prospects area from '00 to '10 ranking the teams in some article. Further, we are far and away the worst at non NA prospects during that time.

Here's a couple articles in terms of prospect success rate:

http://www.theartofscouting.com/default.aspx?p=nhlprospect

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/744844-2011-nhl-draft-ranking-each-teams-draft-success-over-the-last-10-years/page/2

Note: Of course, picking later as a result of successful seasons as well as having a solid core do hurt our success rate. However, there is no excuse to be unanimously in the bottom 5 in the league aside from overall POOR drafting (there are numerous other articles out there, those are just two).

 

[NJDevs26]

Even Lou admitted we have to sign certain guys before July 5, that's more than you usually get out of him. His snail's pace is frustrating at times though, he took three months to hire DeBoer. At least it looks like the right choice this time.

The FA thing is different though, I can't blame anyone for being beside themselves. It ain't just Malkin getting signed before UFA. Gonchar and Streit's rights got traded and it looks like they'll both sign. Some years Lou has been blase about getting the big-name guys signed before FA but this year he 'seems' to be more proactive. He can only do so much though, ultimately the player wants to stay. I think most of our FA's do but I'm preparing for Clarkson to be like so many of our other FA's and see $ in his eyes and walk, which would be the best thing for his bank account and the worst thing for his career.

 

[Brooklyndevil]

I just hope that Lou has finally woken up, if our UFS's aren't signed by the draft, trade their rights just like Snow did in moving Streit for a 4th next season. That is asset management.