Classic Devil
Spirit of 1988
It's time for my annual Devils All-Time Team challenge!
It's basically a puzzle challenge: make the best roster you can out of players in Devils' team history.
But there are a few rules to make this harder than it might immediately seem:
(1) You're selecting players by season. So, for instance, you can take Patrik Elias' 2000-2001 season. But you can only take one player per season. If you take Elias 2000-2001, you cannot take Mogilny 2000-2001; the 2000-2001 team only gets one player to represent it.
(2) You can only select a player once. So, if you take Elias 2000-2001, you can't have Elias 2005-2006 also.
(3) You cannot have two players wearing the same number. If you take Bruce Driver, you cannot also take Scott Gomez (each gets assigned #23). For players who wore more than one number in Devils history, they're assigned the one they wore for longer (so, if you're taking Rolston, he wears #14, which he wore for 7 seasons, and not #12, which he wore for 3 seasons, regardless of which season you're taking him for).
You can otherwise make selections based on any criteria you want. You can choose players based off their regular season performances, or playoff performances; you can focus on choosing only long-time Devils or go for best single-season performances . Whatever feels right to you, go ahead and run with it.
Also choose a head coach and two assistant coaches. No restrictions on these, you can pick anyone from the team's history.
Once you have your team selected, assemble a lineup (lines and pairings, reserve forwards and defense) and post!
Suggestions:
I'm providing something to make this a little easier this year. Because I'm a nerd and do this challenge for fun in my free time, I've put together a Microsoft Excel file complete with all the players I think are genuine candidates for the team. (If you think there are players that should be added to this list, just tell me and I'd be happy to incorporate them.) The list is based on the statistics found at NHL Stats, History, Scores, & Records | Hockey-Reference.com, and takes adjusted scoring and goal contributions, to make it easier to compare statistics across eras. Every row is a player-year, with their number and position, so if you're trying to sort through all the options for a given number, player, or season, the excel file should make it easy.
You can sort it by season point-share, to see which players this particular statistical method thinks were the best in Devils team history.
Note: because of the way these statistics are calculated, and because I shortsightedly did not include Games Played when I made the sheet, players who had shortened seasons are underrated. In particular, everyone in 1994-1995 is underrated by the model (Richer has a ridiculous season that year), as is Elias in his shortened 2005-2006 season.
Also, all statistics are for the regular season only, which is a shame. There's definitely room for improvement.
My suggestion for how to go about starting your team: start by picking players who are going to be represented on basically every team: Brodeur, Stevens, Elias, Niedermayer have lots of good years to pick from and no competition for their numbers (Peter Stastny notwithstanding). Then pick between #9s (Parise/Muller/Hall), #23s (Gomez/Driver), #17s (Sykora/Kovalchuk/Sundstrom), #15s (Langenbrunner/MacLean), etc; these numbers are all also likely to get representation.
I expect this year's teams might not change a whole lot compared to last year's, but I may be wrong about that. 2023-2024 was Jesper Bratt's best career season by many metrics (although not by much), which provides some additional roster flexibility on the wing.
I'll post my roster in a few days.
It's basically a puzzle challenge: make the best roster you can out of players in Devils' team history.
But there are a few rules to make this harder than it might immediately seem:
(1) You're selecting players by season. So, for instance, you can take Patrik Elias' 2000-2001 season. But you can only take one player per season. If you take Elias 2000-2001, you cannot take Mogilny 2000-2001; the 2000-2001 team only gets one player to represent it.
(2) You can only select a player once. So, if you take Elias 2000-2001, you can't have Elias 2005-2006 also.
(3) You cannot have two players wearing the same number. If you take Bruce Driver, you cannot also take Scott Gomez (each gets assigned #23). For players who wore more than one number in Devils history, they're assigned the one they wore for longer (so, if you're taking Rolston, he wears #14, which he wore for 7 seasons, and not #12, which he wore for 3 seasons, regardless of which season you're taking him for).
You can otherwise make selections based on any criteria you want. You can choose players based off their regular season performances, or playoff performances; you can focus on choosing only long-time Devils or go for best single-season performances . Whatever feels right to you, go ahead and run with it.
Also choose a head coach and two assistant coaches. No restrictions on these, you can pick anyone from the team's history.
Once you have your team selected, assemble a lineup (lines and pairings, reserve forwards and defense) and post!
Suggestions:
I'm providing something to make this a little easier this year. Because I'm a nerd and do this challenge for fun in my free time, I've put together a Microsoft Excel file complete with all the players I think are genuine candidates for the team. (If you think there are players that should be added to this list, just tell me and I'd be happy to incorporate them.) The list is based on the statistics found at NHL Stats, History, Scores, & Records | Hockey-Reference.com, and takes adjusted scoring and goal contributions, to make it easier to compare statistics across eras. Every row is a player-year, with their number and position, so if you're trying to sort through all the options for a given number, player, or season, the excel file should make it easy.
You can sort it by season point-share, to see which players this particular statistical method thinks were the best in Devils team history.
Note: because of the way these statistics are calculated, and because I shortsightedly did not include Games Played when I made the sheet, players who had shortened seasons are underrated. In particular, everyone in 1994-1995 is underrated by the model (Richer has a ridiculous season that year), as is Elias in his shortened 2005-2006 season.
Also, all statistics are for the regular season only, which is a shame. There's definitely room for improvement.
My suggestion for how to go about starting your team: start by picking players who are going to be represented on basically every team: Brodeur, Stevens, Elias, Niedermayer have lots of good years to pick from and no competition for their numbers (Peter Stastny notwithstanding). Then pick between #9s (Parise/Muller/Hall), #23s (Gomez/Driver), #17s (Sykora/Kovalchuk/Sundstrom), #15s (Langenbrunner/MacLean), etc; these numbers are all also likely to get representation.
I expect this year's teams might not change a whole lot compared to last year's, but I may be wrong about that. 2023-2024 was Jesper Bratt's best career season by many metrics (although not by much), which provides some additional roster flexibility on the wing.
I'll post my roster in a few days.
