Devils 2017-18 team discussion (player news and notes) - Offseason part IX

[Arturia Pendragon]

Zacha looked fine at wing last year. Plenty of centers started off at wing to ease in, so I have no idea what you are all triggered about.

To your point, Granlund just had his best season after being switched from center to wing full-time.
If you have a defensive center (Koivu in our case) to put with Zacha then keep him at wing if he's tossing up the points .

 

[Camille the Eel]

Yeah I wish I had more confidence in Hynes going into this season. But that's another topic.

(And probably it isn't fair. He had little to work with last year. He has had little to work with in fact since we dealt Stempniak at the deadline year before last. But this year will be the test. There's enough talent here now so that at least we ought to be competitive most nights).

 

[Patrik26]

Palms, Mojo, JQ, Speers, Noesen with McLeod able to play RW, and Bastian in Bingo.

Is Noesen even being considered by the Devils? He's still listed as a RFA unless I missed something? Amazing the change in potential legit forwards from this time last season.

 

[Arturia Pendragon]

I have no idea where to put this so its gonna go here:

Mods, please know that for the upcoming season I will be making one (if not both ) of the Wild vs. Devils GDT's.

<3

 

[Nubmer6]

Is Noesen even being considered by the Devils? He's still listed as a RFA unless I missed something? Amazing the change in potential legit forwards from this time last season.

We DID give him a qualifying offer. Shero said he's taking his time with the RFAs so it's the right deal for both parties.

 

[Ripshot 43]

I have no idea where to put this so its gonna go here:

Mods, please know that for the upcoming season I will be making one (if not both ) of the Wild vs. Devils GDT's.

<3

There is a GDT somewhere (might be up top), where people take claim of certain games.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I'm still convinced Hynes didn't like Bennett and I'm also convinced that Hynes either doesn't care about possession, or that he just doesn't have any awareness that it was something that Bennett was good at.

You do need to score some points for that possession to translate into anything, but I think he should have been given one more year and sent packing next offseason if he couldn't do that. We gave Josefson two years to do that and he was inherited by Shero, with no previous connections to Shero or Hynes and was quite a bit worse than Bennett at producing offense over their respective careers.

We have JJ so much rope because we had no other options. We now have new better options.

It is time to dump the dead weight who can't score.

 

[Emperoreddy]

There is a GDT somewhere (might be up top), where people take claim of certain games.

Claim thread will go up once we are closer to camp.

 

[Bleedred]

We have JJ so much rope because we had no other options. We now have new better options.

It is time to dump the dead weight who can't score.

Bennett produced below his career norms last year. I would have given him one more year and then dumped him if he couldn't get back to his career norms.

 

[Arturia Pendragon]

Claim thread will go up once we are closer to camp.

Good to know, thanks !

 

[Bleedred]

Yeah I wish I had more confidence in Hynes going into this season. But that's another topic.

(And probably it isn't fair. He had little to work with last year. He has had little to work with in fact since we dealt Stempniak at the deadline year before last. But this year will be the test. There's enough talent here now so that at least we ought to be competitive most nights).

He's shown he's a novice at best.

I don't think he should be fired yet, since the team isn't good. But I have zero confidence in his ability to coach an effective system and his talent evaluation is also questionable.

He also seems like one of these typical cavemen coaches (there's too many of them in the NHL) that thinks playing good defense means to play in your own zone a lot. I think if his contract is up after this year and we don't finish with more points than we did in his first season here (barring another poor season from Cory), then how could you argue he deserves to be brought back? Outside of Bill Peters (TRASH goaltending) has any other active head coach lasted 3 straight playoff misses? Tippett did before he was fired.

Jon Cooper is currently the second longest tenured head coach in the league, hired March of 2013. I don't even think the average lifespan among current coaches is 3 years. I think even half the league has changed head coaches just since we hired Hynes.

 

[MadDevil]

We have JJ so much rope because we had no other options. We now have new better options.

It is time to dump the dead weight who can't score.

That's the thing with Bennett. He's a lot like Josefson in that he can do things offensively that make you think he's turning a corner, but the scoring just doesn't come. I do think he's still a useful bottom 6 forward, and wouldn't have minded bringing him back, but at the end of the day I don't think he moves the needle one way or the other.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Bennett produced below his career norms last year. I would have given him one more year and then dumped him if he couldn't get back to his career norms.

I rather give JQ, Speers, and maybe McLeod those spots he would take up.

 

[Bleedred]

That's the thing with Bennett. He's a lot like Josefson in that he can do things offensively that make you think he's turning a corner, but the scoring just doesn't come. I do think he's still a useful bottom 6 forward, and wouldn't have minded bringing him back, but at the end of the day I don't think he moves the needle one way or the other.

Yeah but before last year, Bennett's career production was a bit better than what it was last year. While JJ has produced like a 4th liner for literally all but one year in his career, and it was his first ever season in the league at 19 and only a 28 game sample size.

I rather give JQ, Speers, and maybe McLeod those spots he would take up.

I figured there was at least 2 spots open for those guys, even if Bennett did come back.

 

[Devils731]

Chart measuring how often defenseman allow the opponent to carry the puck in and how frequently the defenseman break plays up. Doesn't show all of the Devils but it's surprising to see Prout was effective in his ice time and unsurprisingly Lovejoy was league worst. Severson was pretty good by these 2 measures also; Merill struggled.

 

[Missionhockey]

I'm still convinced Hynes didn't like Bennett and I'm also convinced that Hynes either doesn't care about possession, or that he just doesn't have any awareness that it was something that Bennett was good at.

You do need to score some points for that possession to translate into anything, but I think he should have been given one more year and sent packing next offseason if he couldn't do that. We gave Josefson two years to do that and he was inherited by Shero, with no previous connections to Shero or Hynes and was quite a bit worse than Bennett at producing offense over their respective careers.

Well I like Bennett, and like you said, he is a good possession player, but at the end of the day the guy only scored 19 points. He's likely not going to be better than a bottom six winger and he's not the difference between us and a playoff spot. Bennett has more value to the team he signed with in St. Louis because they don't have the young players we have and are probably just looking for solid options to fill out their bottom six. However, our bottom six could have younger guys with a little more potential in Quennville, Wood, Blandisi, Speers. Bennett would have blocked one of these kids. He's not trash, and I would have liked to keep him, but ultimately I can see why the organization let him go since he ultimately doesn't fit into their plans and could be of better use to another team. IMO it's what was best for both parties.

 

[R8Devs]

Chart measuring how often defenseman allow the opponent to carry the puck in and how frequently the defenseman break plays up. Doesn't show all of the Devils but it's surprising to see Prout was effective in his ice time and unsurprisingly Lovejoy was league worst. Severson was pretty good by these 2 measures also; Merill struggled.

severson is good by most measures. i've said this before but the treatment of Severson compared to Santini by Devils fans is crazy considering there is only a seven month age difference between the two. I know the difference is a bit significant when considering d-men but Severson is the best young dman the Devils have including both prospects and NHL players, and will be and probably already is the Devils best defenseman. I hope they give him a Klefbom like contract

 

[Billdo]

severson is good by most measures. i've said this before but the treatment of Severson compared to Santini by Devils fans is crazy considering there is only a seven month age difference between the two. I know the difference is a bit significant when considering d-men but Severson is the best young dman the Devils have including both prospects and NHL players, and will be and probably already is the Devils best defenseman. I hope they give him a Klefbom like contract

Severson gets hated on because of his +/- which is asinine and also because he will make a stupid mistake with the puck at least once a game. He is however far and away our best young defenseman, already a top 4 defenseman, and is still super young.

 

[Triumph]

I don't think the Devils are done for the summer. I think they will look into RW options and probably have some PTOs in camp.

The Devils have a bunch of guys presumably coming to the team whose MO is puck-carrying and making plays with the puck but not necessarily shooting - the idea that they don't 'need' Bennett is ridiculous but I can definitely see why they would go with Noesen over him.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

This is an argument from authority. It has no basis. NHL teams get players wrong all the time and Bennett will be one of them. Too bad for him.

Collectively, teams get player evaluations generally right much, much more often than they get them wrong, in the sense that you very rarely see a ~ 25 year old forward who's also a former 1st round pick sign a one year league minimum deal who ends up being much better than a replacement level player after that. (I stress former first round pick, as they're given more rope than lower picks). And again, pretty much every team, including the Devils, has an analytics department now, and saw the stuff Cordell, et al have posted.

So yes, it's an appeal to authority, but the authority has a good track record. And for future reference, there's nothing inherently illogical about appealing to authority.

 

[My3Sons]

I rather give JQ, Speers, and maybe McLeod those spots he would take up.

I think most of the posters agree with you. I think most that advocated to keep Bennett - including me - were thinking more in terms of a short term one year dispensable Insurance policy at RW. Just having a basic semi competent forward to give the kids a night off when needed sort of player that you waive halfway through the season when the kids start to show some consistency.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I think most of the posters agree with you. I think most that advocated to keep Bennett - including me - were thinking more in terms of a short term one year dispensable Insurance policy at RW. Just having a basic semi competent forward to give the kids a night off when needed sort of player that you waive halfway through the season when the kids start to show some consistency.

Don't have the room really. Blender and Noesen might be the extras.

 

[Triumph]

Collectively, teams get player evaluations generally right much, much more often than they get them wrong, in the sense that you very rarely see a ~ 25 year old forward who's also a former 1st round pick sign a one year league minimum deal who ends up being much better than a replacement level player after that. (I stress former first round pick, as they're given more rope than lower picks). And again, pretty much every team, including the Devils, has an analytics department now, and saw the stuff Cordell, et al have posted.

So yes, it's an appeal to authority, but the authority has a good track record. And for future reference, there's nothing inherently illogical about appealing to authority.

This argument is so bad. How can you not see how bad it is? Do I have to find some authority greater than me to point out how awful it is so you might see? If I find one of the top logicians in the world and he or she points it out, will you then accede?

In the broadest sense, the NHL values players correctly in that McDavid will be the highest paid player and Brian Strait the lowest. But within that there's huge gaps in valuation. So sure, if you bet on 'they're paying this guy close to right' versus 'they're not at all', you'll win those bets en masse if you get to bet on most of the league. But if you get to bet on one player with that criteria, you might be way off.

A: The NHL tends to be a groupthink league. This isn't demonstrable, but the NHL as a collective tends to value players somewhat close to equally. Watch how a guy like Parenteau will go out and score goals and play well and it's mid-July and Parenteau is once again jobless. The idea that 'analytics departments' have a bunch of sway over how GMs act is pretty unfounded - the Computer Boys got thrown out of having influence in Florida after one season as pretty much everything they did was undid. We won't see analytics do much in the NHL until someone without a serious hockey background takes over as a GM. Maybe Chayka's that guy, but I haven't really seen it yet.

B: The set of players who meet your criteria are insanely small. I would posit that Bennett is almost certainly the best player in that group. Maybe Sam Gagner fits into that group? Nah, too old. Maybe Benoit Pouliot, a guy who kept getting tossed around for smaller and smaller things until he had some breakout years with the Rangers and got a big UFA deal? But probably not, as he didn't ever have a minimum contract - you've set the bars on that group so tiny that basically Bennett and a few other guys fit into it, most of whom were terrible players.

C: I am not and never have been arguing that Bennett is some great player. He produces at a 3rd line level, drives play, and can play both wings. He also doesn't kill penalties, is bad on the power play, and hasn't really had a healthy season in the NHL.

D: The Blues have nothing invested in Bennett and if they don't like what they see right away they can waive him before the season and presumably after being dumped by 3 organizations within the space of about 15 months, probably no one else will be interested.

 

[Bleedred]

Well I like Bennett, and like you said, he is a good possession player, but at the end of the day the guy only scored 19 points. He's likely not going to be better than a bottom six winger and he's not the difference between us and a playoff spot. Bennett has more value to the team he signed with in St. Louis because they don't have the young players we have and are probably just looking for solid options to fill out their bottom six. However, our bottom six could have younger guys with a little more potential in Quennville, Wood, Blandisi, Speers. Bennett would have blocked one of these kids. He's not trash, and I would have liked to keep him, but ultimately I can see why the organization let him go since he ultimately doesn't fit into their plans and could be of better use to another team. IMO it's what was best for both parties.

While I don't think he's a gamebreaker or the difference in making the playoffs and not making the playoffs, the team definitely needs more players like him, if not for the fact that this lame (lack of) system seems to be completely useless and almost like the antithesis of possession hockey. Hopefully we score a hell of a lot more and Cory looks like Cory again, but the lack of shots and scoring chances we see with this crap system in the last 2 years, I'm skeptical we'll score a lot more, barring 13-14 Avalanche-like fluke percentages.

 

[devilsblood]

Biggest issue with Bennett is injuries imo.

A decent enough player otherwise.