Devils 2021-22 team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - part XII

[My3Sons]

The thing is that Nico really didn't improve at all in 19-20 and 20-21. But this season is very clearly a level above those.

As always, development isn't linear, and it's hard to take anything from last year, but on balance this year is certainly a different looking Nico since about the end of November or early December? Hopefully he stays healthy and can build on this.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Jim would love Nico if he was drafted pre Shero. It’s not even a conversation.

 

[Bleedred]

He was screened by his own man and a Coyotes player as well on the 1st goal. For the 2nd, Graves gave the puck over and 3 coyotes outworked and outmuscled 4 of our guys in the slot.

I get that we would all want Blackwood to stoping those shots but we also keep making mistakes on top of mistakes defensively, so we have to bail the guy out and help him. This system isn't helping him at all and the lack of fight around our crease is alarming. On both goals, our dman should've tied up their guy and one can say that on the tip in from the point, which was the 3rd goal if I'm not mistaken, Severson should've tied up his guy as well.

I get that Blackwood is having a hard time, but our dmen are soft as butter and that needs to stop. When I watch other games, you see guys wacking opposing players who are trying to set camp in front of their goalies... I haven't seen one of our dman do that since Volchenkov for crying out loud. We are giving up the danger area in our zone way too easily and it's costing us points.

As @Unknown Caller posted stillshots of yesterday, he had clear sight on that first goal at the time the shot was taken. He went down way too early and left the short side open. If he doesn't go down so quick that shot hits him.

Goal 2 was the real stinker. It really doesn't look that bad to the naked eye, but he's coasting to the post and gets beaten by the puck back to the post. That puck hits him if he wasn't so lackadaisical in getting over.

Goal 3 was a tip and sometimes that might hit him, but that's real petty to nail him on that one.

Goal 4 was completely no chance unless lucky. One timed from pretty close range.

 

[JimEIV]

A 60 point pace while anchoring the best defensive line in the NHL despite being flanked by trash all season? There was a time not long ago when that would describe a quintessential “Devils Forward.”

You used to have an appreciate for players who played Devils hockey. Now all you care about are points and goals.

I used to have a great appreciation for winning games regularly. We used to do it with Defense and structure....No way shape or form is this team built to play like that.

 

[Bleedred]

I think that’s easy for us to say on this board, and i wouldn’t really disagree, but there’s no chance the organization is gonna give up on Blackwood as a starter after 20 bad games in a disaster clusterf*** season. And i don’t even think Fitz would fully disagree considering he brought in Crawford and Bernier to back him up. Hard to fault the GM for how those moves turned out.

And despite how his play has looked, Blackwood’s 9-9-3 despite the team being allergic to scoring and penalty killing for long stretches of this season. Guaranteed every GM in the league would be prepared to give him a long leash before changing direction in net.

It's not just 20 bad games here. It's 20 REALLY BAD games and then 25-30 generally bad games for the most part.

Blackwood's last 53 games going back to game 6 of last season he's an .894%. 166 goals on 1563 shots, someone check my math if they think I'm wrong and go through the game logs because sometimes I do f*** up when compiling all of this by hand. I probably could have used NHL.com for that, at least for Blackwood I could have.

I thought it would be interesting to go through all the goalies that have played at least 53 games here over the last 10 years and see how they fared during their final 53 games as a goalie for the Devils and I've been working on this all afternoon back and forth between work and here's what I've found.

Schneider's last 53 games as a Devil, this goes all the way back to the first game he played in the 2018 calendar year and even include the playoff series up to his last ever game here on March 6th of 2020.

1458 - 153 = .895%

Keith Kinkaid's last 53 games as a Devil and this goes from March 18th of 2018, include the 2 games he played in the 2018 playoffs and goes up to his very last game ever played here on February 19th of 2019

1541-162 = .895%

Martin Brodeur's last 53 games as a Devil. This goes from March 25th of 2013 up to his very final game played here on April 13th of 2014. Remember for the last 3 or 4 years of Brodeur's career when we thought he was the worst goalie we'd probably ever see here for a long time? He wasn't. He was bad, oh he was bad. I thought so too, but he wasn't the worst of this bunch.

1251 - 129 = .897%.

Johan Hedberg's last 53 games as a Devil. It's surprisingly not bad. His last season here of 19 games played he was an .883%, but he was solid at worst the other two years he played here and this stretch spans from February 18th of 2011 up to his very final game ever played here on April 27th of 2013. I forgot to include his one playoff game relief appearance in 2012 and factor this into it, but it probably won't change it a whole lot.

1332 - 121 = .909%

Now MacKenzie Blackwood's last 53 games here spanning from February 20th of 2021 up to his most recent game played on January 19th of 2022

1563 - 166 = .894%

Conclusion? Blackwood might have just had the worst 53 game stretch of goaltending that we've seen from a Devils goalie possibly. Not by much, but by just a little bit. Back in the early 90's and 80's we've definitely had stretches like that I'm sure, but adjusted for era this is probably the poorest 53 game stretch of games a goalie has played for the Devils at least since the mid 80's? Again, not by much, Schneider and Kinkaid were right there with him and Brodeur wasn't much far behind. Brodeur was 40-41 years old during his last 53 games here, Schneider was broken down completely from a bad hip and Keith Kinkaid is one of the most JAG goalies you could possibly see.

And consider that Schneider was heavily outplaying Brodeur behind the same team during Brodeur’s stretch I posted. Kinkaid was outplaying Schneider for a bit and Blackwood was outplaying both of them behind the same team and faring way better, but now he’s not.

 

[Saugus]

Jim would love Nico if he was drafted pre Shero. It’s not even a conversation.

He hated plenty of Lou's moves too.

 

[StevenToddIves]

I'm not going to join some of these arguments, because they are preposterous. The Devils have a lot of areas they need to improve. Center is not one of them. Hughes, Hischier and Mercer have been an outstanding top trio, far moreso when you consider their age. In a year or two, the Devils could have the best center depth in the division and quite possibly the entire conference.

 

[AfroThunder396]

It's just astonishing to me that you can look at a team with 4 good forwards and a bunch of shit, and then say "You know what the problem is? The good players, they're the problem."

 

[Lou is God]

It's just astonishing to me that you can look at a team with 4 good forwards and a bunch of shit, and then say "You know what the problem is? The good players, they're the problem."

The post of the month, you nailed it.

 

[GameSeven]

Do me favor seriously. Please. Go here: Arizona Coyotes at New Jersey Devils Box Score — January 19, 2022 | Hockey-Reference.com

It's the game log from the Arizona game

Scroll down to the Shot Chart - Look at the Arizona chart on the left....Tell me what you think? Please I am curious to know

But I will say this those 4 chances at the top of the crease for Arizona sums up everything that is wrong with this team.

I am very forgiving of goaltenders in general. Watching the goals scored on Mac that night, the only one I really ding him on his the 4th. And, as a general rule, he struggles with dropping into the butterfly too early.

That said, I did review all the shot charts for the night and, boy, to have a legit goaltender like across the river.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

Wait, is Jim back to dump on Jack? Where was he when Jack was on the hot streak? He's still on a ppg...ffs.

 

[Emperoreddy]

The post of the month, you nailed it.

Fact that the goal posts for Jack's progress have moved into nebulous areas that are hard or impossible to quantify says it all.

If producing hard counting stats at a PPG pace isn't enough, then what will be? Asking him to singe handedly win games is an impossible task. No skater in the NHL can do that. Not even McDavid can do that.

 

[Darkauron]

Wait, is Jim back to dump on Jack? Where was he when Jack was on the hot streak? He's still on a ppg...ffs.

It is such a joke that it is happening again. And people continue to enable. Really just is so annoying

 

[Lou is God]

Fact that the goal posts for Jack's progress have moved into nebulous areas that are hard or impossible to quantify says it all.

If producing hard counting stats at a PPG pace isn't enough, then what will be? Asking him to singe handedly win games is an impossible task. No skater in the NHL can do that. Not even McDavid can do that.

They want a kid who is still months away from legally buying a beer to be Superman.

 

[My3Sons]

The post of the month, you nailed it.

The reasonable take on this is that it is possible to suggest that the team's best players aren't good enough yet to match up to other team's best players. Now, that's just an opinion and there are numerous opinions to suggest that they are light years better than they were last year and they can all continue to improve so being in the ballpark now is a great development, not cause for concern. I will say that even McDrai need support so it is unreasonable to suggest it's all on the few best players. As many have noted, your best forwards in hockey only play about 1/3 of the game, most of the game is not played by the first line.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

I think Toronto would offer a 1st plus one of Amirov/Robertson for Severson at 50% personally, similar to the Coleman trade, or at least they should. I mean they gave away a first plus for Nick Foligno last year.

I would do 1st round pick, Amirov, Robertson for Severson. Would they?

 

[MauDevils]

Can I apply for the GM job? Seems like a pretty easy gig.

 

[Guttersniped]

So what is the return for these guys if we are sellers, and to where?:

Zacha

Johnsson

Severson

Subban

I would be shocked if Johnsson is traded, I don’t see us retaining salary on him.

Trading Zacha doesn’t seem likely at all unless it’s some unforeseeable hockey trade. I don’t see a contender trading for him.

I feel like Subban’s extensive playoff experience might draw interest. 96 playoff games is a lot and he’s been in a Conference Final and Stanley Cup Final.

His actual salary being so little should lower the cost of a second team retaining salary. Not sure what the return is but I assume we do it if it’s possible.

Severson is unlikely, most contenders don’t have 4.16m cap space to spare next season and we’re probably not that enthusiastic about retaining on half his 5.1m salary.

I think he potentially could get a lot from a team like Toronto that desperately needs an upgrade their right side.

The X factor: what other RD is on the market. I assume Braun (Flyers) is but is Ristolainen too? (Man, that was a 2021 14th pick and a 2023 2nd not well spent.)

Pysyk (Buffalo) and Lybushkin (Arizona). Manson (Ducks)? Some of these guys aren’t as good but cheaper, some are more straight-up pure defensive shut-down types that teams might be looking for.

There would pretty much have to be bidding war for Severson to get the kind of return that would make it worth it, which is what happened with Coleman. The market shapes these trades.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I still think a good chunk of the struggles comes back to how this team plays (or well doesn't play) defense. The turnovers, the guys either being out of position or just not knowing who they are supposed to cover or where they need to be, the weak play near the crease, open back doors, etc.

I simply don't think you could take a goalie putting up average stats on another team, put him on this team, and expect him to put up similar numbers.

Their numbers would sink, and as their confidence erodes it would just feedback loop into the basement.

The mental game is huge to goaltending, and if a goalies confidence erodes, their game is going to totally fall apart. Even more so if they aren't healthy.

We have played 6 goalies this season and not one of them has good numbers on this team. Obviously there is some context in two of them weren't healthy and the other 4 most likely aren't NHL caliber, but it should be concerning every goalie we stick in net seems to eventually fail.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Trading Zacha just doesn't make sense. The schedule is super bunched up. More guys are going to get hurt. You need depth to be able to finish the season.

Plus he simply has little value. He is a 3rd line winger who plays a really passive game and isn't scoring at all right now and is about to go into an arbitration year.

Trading Severson makes little sense either. The team is incredibly thin at RD both now and the future. They need to be trying to convince Severson to resign, not trade him. There is no easy or cost effective way to replace him.

Especially right now with Dougie out for an undisclosed amount of time.

 

[Lou is God]

I'm ok if we kept Johnsson another year, from all accounts he's a very popular teammate in the locker room. So when he's on one of his cold streaks at least he's bringing something else to the table.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

I personally don't think they are, and Leafs fans have soured on them based on main board hype. I wouldn't do that trade, but I think the Leafs badly want a top 4 RHD, and basically they have 3 more chances to win a cup with Matthews under his current deal so I wouldn't be surprised to see their prospects dangled this deadline for the right players.

Idk, they are pretty legit prospects. I don't trust what leafs fans say about anything. No offense to them.

 

[Stephen Gionta]

In general, I just think the group of Tatar, Sharangovich, Kuokkanen, Boqvist, Zacha and Johnsson are stylistically redundant, on top of inconsistent.

The team is already relying on two small east-west guys for 20% of their offense. Ironically, it looks like they'd get more dynamic by turning that group over to a more north-south set of forwards.

This.

This.

This.

The only guy of that group I still want on this team 2 years from now is Sharangovich. MAYBE Zacha if he can become more consistent.

 

[Forge]

I'm ok if we kept Johnsson another year, from all accounts he's a very popular teammate in the locker room. So when he's on one of his cold streaks at least he's bringing something else to the table.

I don't think he has much value to trade anyway. Let him play out the string, can probably move him at the deadline next year for something okay. Not untouchable this year, but I'm not sure anyone wants him with that extra year currently.

 

[Saugus]

I'm ok if we kept Johnsson another year, from all accounts he's a very popular teammate in the locker room. So when he's on one of his cold streaks at least he's bringing something else to the table.

Implying that guys like Zacha, Kuok, or Shara (who also don't bring much else when they are points-cold) are unpopular? Genuine question.

I think Johnsson's clear chemistry with Mercer buys him a little slack. Zacha doesn't seem to mesh well with anybody even though he is most often played with Hischier. Kuok and Shara are black holes of suck when they aren't scoring.