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

[billingtons ghost]

I never said he doesn't ever give it his all, and that he's lazy on every shift. You're a Volchenkov supporter it seems, and that's fine with me.

I guess we can't criticize anything though. Someone badmouths Lou here or the coach, and you say we're hacks complaining on a message board.

Stop going back to the 'we can't do this or that'. People are just calling you on something you said that wasn't true.

You say a lot of things that are often very true -

but now no one can criticize you when you are flat out wrong?

 

[billingtons ghost]

Volchie is a warrior and goes the extra mile on every shift, often putting his body at complete risk, to help the team. Right there is the problem though. He's done it for so long it's really caught up to him. He had an expected extremely steep decline in performance due to years of abuse on his body. I love the guys will to do anything for the team, but in his current state he's just a liability.

Exactly. Just like Daneyko, Pandalfo, Brylin, etc etc... Towards the end of all of their careers I wanted them on the pine - but I wasn't going to start calling them names.

 

[apice3*]

Zubrus was only dominant for a very short period of time. He did not have top line numbers regardless.

I don't really know what top line numbers are.

If you put your 3 highest scoring players on one line, you're going to have problems. No idea why people insist on need a certain point value to be a certain type of player. It's kind of ridiculous.

 

[tsipka]

I don't really know what top line numbers are.

If you put your 3 highest scoring players on one line, you're going to have problems. No idea why people insist on need a certain point value to be a certain type of player. It's kind of ridiculous.

You want forwards who can score playing the most amount of minutes. Zubrus is not that guy.

 

[Bleedred]

Stop going back to the 'we can't do this or that'. People are just calling you on something you said that wasn't true.

You say a lot of things that are often very true -

but now no one can criticize you when you are flat out wrong?

YAWN!

I never said Volchenkov never gives effort on any shift. I said he doesn't give effort on every shift. Criticize all you want, but IMO he doesn't give it his all on EVERY shift. That doesn't mean he's ALWAYS lazy, and NEVER gives effort on any shift.

 

[Devils731]

You want forwards who can score playing the most amount of minutes. Zubrus is not that guy.

I would say I want to assemble my even strength lines in a way that creates the biggest goal differential on my team. For that, Zubrus may be best utilized with other big scorers, or he might not, depends on the rest of the team.

 

[apice3*]

You want forwards who can score playing the most amount of minutes. Zubrus is not that guy.

Not every player on the team is there to score as their first responsibility. Put 3 scorers on one line and see what happens.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Zubrus was on the "2nd" line for most of our cup run

he can easily play in the top 6 IMO

 

[Richer's Ghost]

Zubrus forechecks well and cycles well - that creates space & scoring chances for the scorers to score.

You can't have all finesse in the top 6 and run a forecheck system. Zubrus is underrated by the stat watchers.

 

[Bleedred]

We need a new geezer line. We could probably do without the third guy being a geezer though. That was a good line back in 11-12.

 

[tsipka]

Not every player on the team is there to score as their first responsibility. Put 3 scorers on one line and see what happens.

Zubrus was on the "2nd" line for most of our cup run

he can easily play in the top 6 IMO

I would love to put three scorers on one line, but unfortunately we dont have that many.

I will agree that chemistry is more important than just pushing your best players on the first line. Zubrus plays pretty well and scores around the same amount no matter where he plays, though.

 

[apice3*]

If you put 3 scorers on one line, you're going to have chemistry and defensive issues. This isn't NHL13. You can't sort your forwards 1-12, and put them on lines in increments of 3.

 

[Brooklyndevil]

I personally don't care about the order of our lines, except for the 4th. But this would be my dream going into next season:

Kovy-Locki- Nicuskin
Elias-Zjac-Henrique
Zub-Weiss-Clarkson
4th line - Maybe Josefson over Gionta if he has a good camp.

If our young defensemen can hold their own, we will be a good team, maybe a very good team.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Kovalchuk won't play LW under Deboer

I think thats pretty clear by now

 

[SpeakingOfTheDevils]

To me, Elias-Zajac-Zubrus looks a lot better than Elias-Zajac-Clarkson.

 

[Cowbell232]

Argue the content of a post, not the poster.

 

[tsipka]

I hope that Zajac can return to 60 point form and start playing with Kovy again. We would be in much better position as a team if that were to happen.

 

[Bleedred]

I hope that Zajac can return to 60 point form and start playing with Kovy again. We would be in much better position as a team if that were to happen.

I don't think 50 points is out of the question, but it all depends on who he's playing with. If it's Kovy, or Patty plus some bum on the other wing then maybe not. If it's either Kovy or Patty on one wing, and someone decent on the other then yeah absolutely. He and Kovy were beastly together in 10-11.

If Zajac somehow got 60 points next year then he could replace a lot of what Zach brought in 11-12, all by himself. We said the same thing last Summer too though.

 

[apice3*]

Zajac will be a 25-35 guy next year.

 

[Bleedred]

Zajac will be a 25-35 guy next year.

I think he's very capable of scoring 25 goals, but he rarely used his shot last year. Or possibly he just wasn't getting those higher quality chances in the slot. He has a better shot than Zach did, and I always thought so. Last year he had a couple goals in the playoffs from the high slot, and has scored quite a few goals like that throughout his career.

He had a pretty good goal against Lundqvist this past year, but I don't remember too many of his goals coming from long range.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Travis will score more if he's healthy, he clearly was not 100% this past season.

 

[Devils Trap]

He was much better at the end of last season

 

[Devils Trap]

We could probably get away with a Zubrus-Zajac-Kovy first line
It was pretty good early on before the Zubie injury

 

[Bleedred]

We could probably get away with a Zubrus-Zajac-Kovy first line
It was pretty good early on before the Zubie injury

I didn't care for that line all that much, but it was probably the best first line of the year. Definitely much better than what came after it, or at least whatever included Kovy and Zajac together after that.

 

[apice3*]

The lockout, the whole team sucked, and he was still recovering from the Achilles. He began to return to form in April.