Omar Little
Omar comin yo
Not often but the contract would have significant value and we would be dealing from a significant position of strength organizationally. It could address other needs depending on how the year goes.
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Not often but the contract would have significant value and we would be dealing from a significant position of strength organizationally. It could address other needs depending on how the year goes.
We have lots of prospects. Our starter was supposed to be someone drafted in 2015. 4 starters in our division were drafted in 2013 or 2014. The Devils have drafted a goalie every year since 2015 after drafting effectively none in the 4 drafts prior. Just takes lots of time and experimentation, and when you lose your two starting goalies it's almost impossible to do well, and predictably the Devils did not.
glenwo2
JESPER BRATWURST
oh come on now....You're going to hold that against him?
Had Bratt not impressed in camp and Preseason, he would've spent time in the AHL.
It doesn't matter whether there was weak competition or not.
You have to impress to the point where you force your way onto the team which Bratt did and others didn't.
It's that simple.
- Dec 20, 2018
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Huh? I don’t even care about the Lou vs Shero thing but when Shero came in he was horrified that we had no goalie prospects and he was right. That’s why Blackwood happened in his first draft.
Other than the nepotism nice gesture throwaway pick of Anthony Brodeur at #208 in 2013, the last goalies we drafted were:
2010 #84 Wedgewood & #174 Clermont
2005 #39 Frazee
Goalies take time and you get them by continually taking swings. The NY Islanders have a good one that they drafted in 2014, the same year Shesterkin was drafted. And Demko. And Merzlikins. And Nedeljkovic. And Vanacek. And Husso.
I don’t give a rats ass about past win records, they happened. I was there. I got over them. I’m sorry they hurt you. I’m focused on the future though.
I do care about team building and trading the 9th pick for Schneider was a bad idea when happened and never drafting goalies was an absurd approach.
Even if you disagree with Shero’s picks at least his approach makes a lot more sense. Even Lou has wised up a little and at least drafted 3 goalies since 2018. (And no, having goalies on your roster does not mean you shouldn’t draft them, they take time develop and you never know what will happen to your current one.)
“No viable prospects” at the position is either willful ignorance or pissy trolling so I’m not going to even bother with that.
JimEIV
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As Patrick Henry said in his fiery speech to the House of Burgesses..."I know of no way of judging the future but by the past."
Do you see an inflection point here?
How are the "viable prospects" any different from when Shero took over?
When Shero took over the big club had Schneider and Kinkaid...Kinkaid was still very much a prospect having only played 20 games and being 25 years old prior to Shero's arrival.
In Albany was Wedgewood(23 years old) and Ken Appleby (20 years old) And an old washed up Yan Danis on his last leg.
Wedgewood just got a contract with Dallas and Appleby is still sticking it out in the minors between the ECHL and AHL. and posting pretty good numbers at 26 years old now 27.
You like the names better today? You feel better more were drafted? I don't see what Shero did for goaltending besides draft one every year?
Oneiro
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- Mar 28, 2013
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This rebuild is taking about as long as I expected it to given the circumstances.
It is the price to be paid for drafting two middle six forwards over a decade. A guy like Zetterlund is more promising than all of Matteau, Quenneville, Josefson, Tedenby, etc and he's a number 7-8 forward prospect. That depth wasn't there before, in the days of people praying Boucher could gain a step or two. That is the result of Shero's "mess." Turning Larsson into Mercer is itself a miracle, considering how much that No. 4 undershot his projection.
Show me a rebuild that's currently worked faster without star players in place. NYR with Trouba, Panarin and Fox forcing their way there? LAK, where you casually have two Hall of Famers sticking around playing pretty well? Or are you going to mis-cite DET's winning percentage again?
You seem to want what Nashville, Calgary, Winnipeg and Minnesota have done, which is conflating futility with pride and forever staying a mid-tier team. Those current groups are never winning anything and they merely serve as deadline farms for teams that accumulated top end via the draft.
JimEIV
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This where you lose me...Zetterlund may very well turn out to be good...But no way, no how is a 23 year old Zetterlund "more promising" Than a Josefesonon, Tedenby, Boucher or even Queeneville....Those guys blew the doors off a Zetterlund at 20 years old.
I'm not sure I understand what your argument is here. Are you arguing that Shero isn't a good GM? If so, yeah, he's been fired twice because of that. He made a lot of trades that were on the surface good value for us, but he was constantly making a rebuild move on one side and a move to contend on the other. If he had committed fully to the rebuild, we would have bottomed out faster and then we might be contending sooner. Who knows, it depends on how the picks he would have made or prospects he would have traded for would have worked out. Are you saying we all should have been more down on Shero sooner and calling for him to be fired? You're asking a lot of fans of a team to root against moves that are on the surface making the team better when fans always want to believe their team has the potential to be successful. Something tells me if Shero had just made 2nd round picks instead of trading those off for Palmieri, Mueller, Gusev, and traded off Schneider, traded Larsson and Henrique for picks/prospects instead of Hall and Vatanen, that you wouldn't have been happy with that either.
Are you arguing that we should be better given we drafted 1st twice? If so, yeah, we got unlucky that in 2017 the two prospects in consideration to go 1st were underwhelming compared to most of the other recent high picks and that in 2019 the consensus #1 was the least "NHL ready" in a very long time. You've been arguing that somehow having multiple high picks should have just instantly made us a good team for a while now despite that clearly not being how it works for almost any franchise. If you're holding this against Shero, you're essentially blaming him for winning the lottery in the wrong years.
But if you're arguing that the franchise was in a better position pre-Shero than post based on win%, you're placing way too much emphasis on the win% of the NHL roster and not enough on all the other assets and how they project.
Not to mention, none of this matters at this point. Our D prospect pool is absolutely loaded, we have a number of good young forwards pushing for roster spots, we have two first-line caliber centers, several additions from winning pedigrees to the roster, and the best overall defense we've had since I started following this team (and that includes the group that went to the cup finals).
I also can't explain to you how absolutely meaningless the difference between 32 and 31 wins is from a statistical standpoint in a game as high-variance as ice hockey, so asserting that the NHL roster even was worse in 2019 vs. 2015 based on that is quite the statement to make.
JimEIV
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No to simplify it...I am saying this rebuild is in its 8th year because Shero did a shitty job. Especially with the Defense. Had Shero been making the moves Fitzgerald has been we wouldn't be going into the 8th year hoping to take the first step out of the basement.
And Our Defense Prospects are loaded largely because the path Fitzgerald has taken. All the Quality has come in the last 3 years....Shero wasted 5 years is what I am saying. Not only wasted 5 years but set the Defense and Goaltending back to 1980's levels. And we were lucky to win the lottery twice and get Bratt because almost everything Shero touched turned to crap.
Devils731
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I agree that at 20 years old those guys were better prospects than Zetterlund.
I would say putting them all at the same age as Zetterlund now, I think Josefson may be the only guy still ahead of him and arguably none of them are ahead.
Tedenby was moving backwards in the organization.
Josefson was having trouble scoring in the NHL and was scoring “ok” in the AHL.
Quenville was crushing the AHL but was doing nothing in the NHL after a few chances.
Zetterlund had his first crushing season in the AHL and came up and scored at a better NHL clip than any of the prior 3 were able to generate.
————
So yes, I think looking at them all at the same time, Zetterlund would probably be the most promising prospect. The other 3 guys were stagnant or got worse and Zetterlund improve his stock.
OK, well you won't have any argument on that front by me. As I said in the first post, Shero tried to trade his way out of a rebuild and was unable to assemble enough talent to make up for the hole he started in. But again, not sure why that matters at this point. we are where we are and we have someone who seems to have a vision and long-term plan at the helm currently. It's to be seen if that vision will be successful.
Oneiro
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A third round pick who went from 19 in 46 games, 19 in 34 to 52 in 58 games and then earning a cup of coffee and putting up 8 in 14 games?
Yes, that upward trend is stronger vs. a Josefson who scored well in Albany and never broke 20 pts at the NHL level because he couldn't earn more games and minutes at any point, age 19-25. The fact that it's not even a slam dunk between one Shero-era third rounder and the best of Lou's first round forwards during that time says it all.
JimEIV
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Josefson came into the NHL before his 20th birthday, Tedenby was 20.
Queeneville got a call up at the end of the 2017 season when we were in Tank mode like this year and had 4 points in 12 games. It certainly isn't the 8 points in 14 games Zetterlund had but Quenneville was 20 about to turn 21, Zetterlund was 22 about to turn 23. It really isn't much that much different
- Dec 20, 2018
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If you don’t understand why teams draft goalies a lot more than Lou did (or won’t admit the obvious, plain as day, truth staring you in the face) I can’t help you.
Kinkaid was a good FA signing in 2011 but he was 25 with a July birthday when Shiro was hired in May 2015.
I already identified Wedgewood as one of only goalie prospects drafted by Lou? Teams don’t just draft one second tier guy every five years though. He was 22 with a August birthday when Ray arrived.
Ken Appleby was signed to an ELC on Oct 4 2015 by Ray Shero.
JimEIV
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Let make believe having Martin Brodeur had nothing to do with the frequency we drafted goalies
SteveCangialosi123
Registered User
I don’t want to hear about Jacob Josefson or John Quenneville or any of those bums. Especially in this totally unrelated thread.
JimEIV
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They are bums now...
That's the way it works. You are a promising prospect....Until your are not.
So before anyone proves anything you can make big list of names and say "we're stacked!"...Quietly they all fall away and we list the next crop of names and say "We're Stacked" [Insert Circle of Life song]
Zajacs Bowl Cut
Lets Go Baby
If you truly, honestly believe that the prospect pool right now is similar to what it was in 2015...........yeah I dont know what to say.
JimEIV
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No, of course not...It shouldn't be. The lead up to 2015 we never had high picks the years prior to 2013 we were a good team winning 40+ and having a 100+ points most years.
EDIT: It should be remembered that Zacha was our highest pick since Scott Niedermayer....24 freaking years prior- That's how good life was.
There is no way the prospect pools could be the same when you are literally picking at average 30 overall for 15 years vs picking an average of 5OA for 8 year...
But the overvaluing of the existing pool is hilarious...After the 2016 draft this place declared Shero fixed the Right Wing Problem...Hell, I even bought into it
Palmieiri
Bastian
Anderson
Just signed Nick Lappin out of College
Maybe even McLeod at RW
Stacked! We can dig up the old Stacked at RW threads - Position of strength bro...So much better than the Boucher Quenneville garbage prospects...No not really.
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OmNomNom
Taco is Love, Taco is Life
i'll agree on the bolded, but idk if we had the same hype for the forward you listed - bastian was at most going to be a middle 6er, while we had hopes for joey to become 2RW
i think the important thing of note is that the quality of our picks seems to be improved, and i think that's just bc of how the game has changed. we're building a run-and-gun offense, so any prospects we have doesn't necessarily need a physical edge (i think you could argue mcleod was the start of the trend towards "fast, attacking, supportive"). downside is there are chances of these picks being more boom/bust, as their floors/ceilings are a lower/higher
Eggtimer
Registered User
We habe more high end prospects now than we have ever had. High end plus how many prospects we ha accumulated increases the chances that we hit in one or more.
I am confident we will end up with some very good NHL talent .
Hughes brothers , Mercer , Nemec , I think are slam dunks. We will have to wait and see how well Holtz Gritzyuk and others do. I consider Nico and Bratt as hits already (Jack as well ) .
I know it’s hard to not be optimistic based off of past seasons but I feel we are making strides .
I am confident we will end up with some very good NHL talent .
Hughes brothers , Mercer , Nemec , I think are slam dunks. We will have to wait and see how well Holtz Gritzyuk and others do. I consider Nico and Bratt as hits already (Jack as well ) .
I know it’s hard to not be optimistic based off of past seasons but I feel we are making strides .
- Dec 20, 2018
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Let make believe having Martin Brodeur had nothing to do with the frequency we drafted goalies
I responded to that sort of thinking in my first post.
How old was Marty again in those years? We let him go after 2014-15, the time to draft goalies to replace him was years before that.
Lou has two goalies now, and one is both young and terrific, and yet he used his second pick in 2021 draft on a goalie. A very old dog can learn new tricks.
But I’m done responding to your random dodges while you ignore my overall points.
Do you think Lou not drafting goalies harmed this team? I do. Do you think that was a poor drafting/team building approach? I do.
I knew you wouldn’t address those points.
I knew instead you would argue that Kinkaid, Wedgewood and Appleby were a great goalie “prospect pool” as a retort.
And then when learning Lou didn’t even sign Appleby, you would let that silently drop away.
It’s only “Boo Shero! vs Yay Lou!” and nothing else matters.
We don’t know what we have in the goalies we drafted but Blackwood already has surpassed both Kinkaid and Wedgewood.
And I don’t care about “Shero’s goalies” vs whatever. I care about our current goalie prospect pool. And yes, I do like the names in the current pool a lot more than the very few names in Lou’s goalie prospect pool.
Cheddabombs
Status Quo
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Soo Marino... excited to see what he can do in maybe a bit of a lesser role. Last few seasons he was 3rd on the Pens defense for TOI/g so having Hamilton and Severson take on bigger minutes could help Marino flourish a bit more.
Shut down teams' bottom 6 lines, transition up ice quick, score! It'll almost be too easy!
Shut down teams' bottom 6 lines, transition up ice quick, score! It'll almost be too easy!
SteveCangialosi123
Registered User
Totally derailing this thread by gaslighting people into believing we were all super excited about Nate Bastian, Joey Anderson, and Nick Lappin. Amazing stuff.
beekay414
Registered User
Devils picks from 2000-2014
22
28
20 (traded in Arnott deal)
17
20
23
30
26 (traded in Fahey deal)
24
20
24 (traded in Kovy deal)
4
29
9 (traded in Schneider deal)
30 (Devils finished with 88 points - would've picked in lottery)
Avg pick = 22
Little further off than "literally picking 30th" every year.
Simple fact is, other successful teams have no problem hitting on picks in this range so I love how that's an excuse for your boy, who you hold no accountability whatsoever for our current predicament and would rather blame the guy that took over the shit pile Lou left.
Alas, that's the only thing I'm going to say. Not getting dragged into this crap again.
22
28
20 (traded in Arnott deal)
17
20
23
30
26 (traded in Fahey deal)
24
20
24 (traded in Kovy deal)
4
29
9 (traded in Schneider deal)
30 (Devils finished with 88 points - would've picked in lottery)
Avg pick = 22
Little further off than "literally picking 30th" every year.
Simple fact is, other successful teams have no problem hitting on picks in this range so I love how that's an excuse for your boy, who you hold no accountability whatsoever for our current predicament and would rather blame the guy that took over the shit pile Lou left.
Alas, that's the only thing I'm going to say. Not getting dragged into this crap again.
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