Don't forget that pre-2005, collegiate players weren't eligible for the draft until they turned 19, so Parise was in his D+4 year relative to Hughes.
Devils 2021-22 offseason team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - part II
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Don't forget that pre-2005, collegiate players weren't eligible for the draft until they turned 19, so Parise was in his D+4 year relative to Hughes.
- Mar 21, 2007
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Well two things on that, one discussing Hughes and Nico is relevant to the 2021-22 Devils, albeit the comparisons to Parise and Zajac aren’t really. And two you guys can’t keep these discussions to the team thread as it is, they always pop up in OOT/ATL/player threads so even if we had a ‘yesteryear’ thread it’d just be more time for us to spend moving posts over there when discussions inevitably veer off in the team thread or any other thread.
The Devil In I
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Guy comparing pre-salary cap era Cup winners to our current build is complaining about faulty comparisons...
You're telling me we can just sign two top flight UFAs (Chara + Horton) and have a career nobody goalie come out of nowhere to become a first time starter at 32 years old and win 2 Vezinas and a Conn Smythe in 3 years!? Or we can't just build another ~15-20 year dynasty on the back of one of the best goalies of all time? Man this management group is USELESS!
New Jersey Devils
Doc & Chico Forever
Not sure why you guys continue to take J's bait. It'll go nowhere.
JimEIV
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- Feb 19, 2003
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I think the bigger issue is every time the weakness of this organization are discussed or point out for today, right now, this very moment most here look lay blame on GM that has been gone for 7 off seasons.
It's starting to get weird...Almost like jilted lover - pet rabbit in a pot of boiling water level weird.
- Mar 21, 2007
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Because the process crowd doesn’t want to admit there’s kernels of truth in the skepticism about the rebuild and the younger players while the win now every year crowd refuses to acknowledge you can’t build a team the same way with the same odds of sustainability in 2021 that you could in 1995.
I think that's an oversimplification. I posted above about a number of things I think contributed to the current mess and nowhere did I mention drafting in the latter part of the Lou era. You can't use words like "every time" or "sucks ass" and expect to come off as reasonable to most folks. I agree with you on a number of things about the team. I think most folks do. I think it's the hyperbole that clouds many of your points. If you said Jack and Nico need to be better I'd be surprised if you got any pushback. Saying a teenager trying to compete in the NHL is a "disgrace" or a 22 year old who has to carry a mess of a team "sucks ass" is going to make you sound extreme.
JimEIV
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- Feb 19, 2003
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21 points in 61 games from a #1 overall...How do you classify that? I think it is a disgrace. I like the description and actually think it is appropriate -
We have had #6, #11, #1, #17, #1, #7 and now #4 -
5 of those 7 were in our lineup and we produced the 6th worst season as a point percentage in team history - with only 1982 through 1987 being worse seasons. This was the worse team we have iced in modern times.
Since the first season under Shero (2015-16 .512%) we have had worse records in 4 of the last 5 seasons. This last season being the worst with 5 of those players in the lineup. This is not going in the right direction and has been a catastrophe.
I don't think any of that is hyperbolic...it's more like your desired to believe things are better than they are, make you want to believe I am exaggerating or being hyperbolic...But the evidence is right in front of our faces.
aboriginal
lou ****ing sucks
What are WE supposed to do about it? We suck, our owners suck, mistakes were made, the end. Thrillsville.
TrufleShufle
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- Aug 31, 2012
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You engage every time and I appreciate that, but the one time you always go silent is when I ask, would you have done anything different when we drafted Hughes? Do you think Hughes was the wrong choice and are now showing you were right, or did you know Hughes was the right choice at the time but are just disappointed in what he has been so far?
No, it's very simple really -
In 2014-15, the Devils collapsed. They had had a decent season the year before, robbed of a playoff berth due to terrible play in the shootout and some poor goaltending choices. They had some younger players but not very many and those that were young did not have much of a chance of being better than average players. The old players were almost to a man shot, or would be shot in a few years. While Lou presented his GM choice as his decision, it almost certainly was not his decision and Shero went about firing a lot of long-time Devils employees.
When you 'start' a rebuild it is usually after a long period of sucking, and indeed the Devils had missed the playoffs 3 years in a row and 4 out of the last 5, but due to trades and circumvention penalties and a long playoff run, they would end up drafting 4th, 29th, not at all, 30th, and 6th in the subsequent 5 drafts. Moreover, they had traded a lot of their other draft picks besides - 2012 was the only season where the Devils had a 'better' complement of picks than what they were given, and of course they picked 29th that year.
They drafted okay in those intervening years but they did not come out of them with any star players. There's definitely some useful guys but that's it. This isn't the back on which to begin a rebuild.
It's not totally clear to me what Shero's plan was for the franchise, he traded for Palmieri and signed some low-cost guys going into 2015 and that team competed reasonably well - they were better than last year's team for sure, and he managed to turn a PTO player into a 2nd and 4th round draft pick which is pretty good. Turned Gelinas into a 3rd too. But it's not hard to see how that team is not the future of the franchise - the leading scorers on it were 24 and 25, but the next 3 guys were over 30. So he goes out and gets Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, makes the same fringe-type moves, but the team collapses the next year - not only is it bad, but he has almost nothing to move at the deadline. Plus Schneider was bad down the stretch, his best player.
We can go on like this talking about what happened each year, but Shero's plan, such as it was, looks like this -
- Don't make any huge commitments to older players
- Leave room on the roster for younger players competing for spots
- Take your shot when you think you have it
- Don't trade a 1st round pick
The thing that is missing from the franchise right now are older players, and yet the only older players drafted by the Devils and traded by them who have business on an NHL roster in 2021-22 are Henrique, Larsson, and Coleman. There just is no good Devils team in 2021 without losing and a lot of it.
JimEIV
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- Feb 19, 2003
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It's a misdirection question...based on a bullshit scenario.
I see this at work alot...6 iterations of bad decisions by a single person and THEN they ask what would you have done different on the 6th iteration...The real answer is you shouldn't have screwed up 5 times before this.
I don't want to be picking 1st overall...I don't want to watch ping-pong balls every June....but we've embarked on a process of the draft being our sole method to move forward...If you are dependent on the draft as your only method of team building and you miss with your heavy artillery you are screwed - You're screwed for a long time. I think it is dumb approach...I think there are draft years that are simply uninspiring and if you've set your course in a period of mediocre years you are destined to be a decade long doormat.
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The problem here is that what you're going to end up logicing yourself into saying is that you just want to have a winning franchise all the time and that is just not possible, nobody has made the playoffs every year since I've started following the NHL, and even the teams who've made it most years have had some years where they miss very badly. You need a plan for when your good players are too old and your young players cannot form the basis of a winning NHL team.
There's many other deep ironies here I could analyze, but I'll leave those for others to point out.
TrufleShufle
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- Aug 31, 2012
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Listen, I got all that, I'm just trying to get rid of broad stroke arguments for a second and pin down one thing. Would you have done anything different, or was it the right choice (no matter if it sucked being there or not) and you are just disappointed we had to choose him and he is where he is?
You say Hughes is a disgrace, that's fine if you believe that, but I would just like to know this one thing to carry on with you.
No, the team is bad. As Bill Parcells said, you are what your record says you are. I just don't think anything a teenager does against grownups is a disgrace. A disgrace is when someone doesn't try or doesn't care. It's also an opinion, not a fact. Insulting a teenager as an adult is bad enough form in my view, but when the kid is just overmatched it's not a disgrace to me. Why settle on his rookie season only? Your "disgrace" comment was this season wasn't it? Jack improved his PPG this season. He went from a 2 points in six games guy to a one point in two games guy. Based on his age that seems pretty good. Hopefully next year he can similarly improve. Nico didn't improve his PPG this season given the injuries so he's stuck in neutral. A 52 point center that plays physical and drives play and wins face-offs and can play well against the other team's best players doesn't "suck ass" in my view, first pick and big contract or not. Disappointed he doesn't score more? Of course. Is he making too much on his deal? Sure. I believe comparing a 22 year old being asked to carry a lousy team to sodomy is hyperbolic. Post a poll and ask the main boards if "sucks ass" as a player description is conservative, reasonable, or hyperbolic. My guess is most see it as hyperbolic. It's not that I want to pretend things are better, it's that I realize that I can't change them and can only hope for the best. As fans we have one choice that matters. Do something that adds money to the team's revenue or withhold it. Period. That's it. The team doesn't really care about fans that don't contribute in some way to the bottom line, even a small contribution like watching or providing social media hits or clicks or whatever. I can't get worked up about Jack's uneven improvement. I think it will happen in the next year or so and he'll be fine. Similarly, I can't blame Nico for being picked first when he isn't a high end scorer. He's trying. He cares. He's very good at a lot of the tougher elements of the sport and I think the scoring will be fine behind Jack's over the next couple of years. You may see it differently. I just think you'll be suspended less and actually make better arguments if you temper them. Acknowledging the team stinks doesn't require chest beating.
- May 1, 2011
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I’d like to see what happens this off-season, but if we go into this year with not much of anything of an upgrade from last year, I’m really gonna start to legitimately question a lot of things. Like why Shero was even fired in the first place, which I was a supporter of, although for much different reasons than what he was fired for.
At some point we need to make some improvements in the standings and we haven’t done that since this rebuild officially began, with the exception of the Taylor Hall MVP/playoff year.
And I’d really like to see somebody come and overachieve. Whether it’s Hughes, Hischier or even Holtz or maybe even someone very unexpected like Foote.
For what it’s worth, I’ve never really felt let down by Nico since he’s been here. It sucked that he had an injury plagued season this year.
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Nico Hughes
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- Jun 28, 2021
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I thought Jack looked great last yearWas kind of expecting he has a breakout year
Call Me Al
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- Aug 28, 2017
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oh please. no one is happy about the teams performance recently but his posts regularly obfuscate the truth and make bad faith arguments. for every accurate assessment about the poor performance of the team there are 5 points that ignore or contradict reality
Offseason Champs
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- May 16, 2011
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I agree with this to a large extent. I think it's time we started making some forward movement. I think we made a lot of decent progress this year, but I'd like to see one of these guys like Mercer or Holtz come in and overperform, or maybe just perform at an elite level out of the gate. Nico has been pretty good so far, Hughes was great his second year, and I think it'd be nice to see someone else really hit big time at the pro level this coming year.
It'd be nice to not be the obvious basement dweller this year.
MartyOwns
thank you shero
- Apr 1, 2007
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Was kind of expecting he has a breakout year
how dare you
ZachaFlockaFlame
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- Aug 24, 2020
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I’ll take being on the bubble all year even if we do miss next year, the young guys can’t have years and years on end where they’re just playing out their years in anticipation for the draft lottery. To be fair though, they were playing well before covid ravaged the roster this year. Some of the guys even said in their locker clean out day that they didn’t feel good months later and some were still feeling the effects of it.
Eggtimer
Registered User
Arvidsson to LA for relatively cheap . We need some tug similar to that. An established goal scorer for Hughes that isn’t old as dirt but yet a veteran that knows how to finish and is proven.
All this with a contract length of 1-2 years so Holtz Mercer Foote have time to develop and work their way up the depth chart.
I fully expect or at least hope to hell Fitz is going to add a winger like Tarasenko ( not saying it has to be Tank for sure but someone like him )
I’m not saying we should give up premium assets on a older player but we need something moving forward. We can’t roll out the exact same lineup next year and hope that we magically start winning more games.
Someone like Tarasenko who would cost maybe a 2nd and a 3rd is not going to gut our prospect pool and gives us a finisher and and someone to help boost our terrible PP and give confidence to Hughes and Nico having someone that can fill the back of the net
All this with a contract length of 1-2 years so Holtz Mercer Foote have time to develop and work their way up the depth chart.
I fully expect or at least hope to hell Fitz is going to add a winger like Tarasenko ( not saying it has to be Tank for sure but someone like him )
I’m not saying we should give up premium assets on a older player but we need something moving forward. We can’t roll out the exact same lineup next year and hope that we magically start winning more games.
Someone like Tarasenko who would cost maybe a 2nd and a 3rd is not going to gut our prospect pool and gives us a finisher and and someone to help boost our terrible PP and give confidence to Hughes and Nico having someone that can fill the back of the net
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