Confirmed with Link: Devils acquire Vitek Vanecek and 46th Overall pick from WSH for 37th Overall pick and 70th Overall pick

[AfroThunder396]

At the end of the day, there's just not enough goalies to go around. Someone is going to end up holding the bag. I'm glad it won't be us this time.

 

[Classic Devil]

I like the Vanecek move

I don't like that Blackwood potentially has to play 30+ games here next year or even more if Lindy Ruff can't contain his erection for him

I don't believe Blackwood is gonna be very good again (I give it a better chance than I did to 32-33 year old Schneider though)

I don't trust Ruff to be able to contain his Blackwood erection, much like when Laviolette felt like he had to play Samsonov late in the regular season last year when Vanecek dropped off a bit

I'm tired of the annual ''He's gonna bounce back! I can feel it! Look how great he played to end last year!'' whether it's with Marty, Cory, Blackwood. Obviously you can't say ''Look how great he played to end last year!'' with Blackwood, that's more about the Cory stuff.

But it's like the same shit almost ever year, just with a different goalie. And the last one we kept a year too long.

As you say though, Blackwood is much younger, and the kind of injuries he has suffered aren't ones that should permanently limit his performance ceiling. I'm more concerned about general year-to-year consistency than I am about his injuries.

 

[Ripshot 43]

I like this move for the team.

I like even more that this gives our 2 young guys in the A one more layer of protection between them and being thrown back into the fire before they’ve been given the proper time to develop.

 

[Bleedred]

As you say though, Blackwood is much younger, and the kind of injuries he has suffered aren't ones that should permanently limit his performance ceiling. I'm more concerned about general year-to-year consistency than I am about his injuries.

That's exactly what I'm more worried about.

As I've asked a few times, it is possible the injuries are what kept him from struggling to stay above .890%? And not just to stay above .900%-.905%?

His AHL career was rather mediocre and with an AHL career like his, I don't think you're gonna find many goalies that had really long NHL careers that were actually successful.

Now, Vanecek had almost as bad of a year in the AHL in 17-18. The same year of Blackwood's horrible season in the AHL. And both played 32 games that year. Vanecek's AHL career was considerably better than Blackwood's, but he also stayed in the AHL for longer/more years than Blackwood got to.

 

[Camille the Eel]

I mean, he's not going to come out and say, "I'm so f**cked and desperate for goaltending". That's not going to help him much negotiating with other teams and agents.

Agree and I hope you are right that he’s not really set in cement over that tandem.

 

[Camille the Eel]

Joe Sakic said he was going with Georgiev and Francouz. That means Georgiev is going to be the 1A and doing a lot of the heavy lifting because Francouz is 32 year old fragile china doll.

Toronto is kicking the tires on Matt f***ing Murray.

For Gods sake, it’s an ugly world out there in terms of goalies.

There isn’t a solution involving another goalie with any name that will please you.

We aren’t getting Kuemper or Campbell. There’s nothing else on the UFA market worth mentioning.

There’s nothing realistically available to us on the trade market that involves anyone exciting.

We aren’t trading for Gibson, who very likely won’t get traded, unless someone gets desperate and pays up.

San Jose will presumably trade a goalie at some point but a bunch of teams will be interested in whatever they throw overboard. And whoever it is very likely won’t be an improvement for us or just a negligible one.

The big danger of Off-Season Goalie Musical Chairs is that the music stops with you holding nothing. Or Martin Jones.

Fitz got a goalie. It’s a bit much to expect him to get two in the worst off-season goalie market we’ve seen in years and years.

I never understood what went wrong with Blackwood’s heel so I don’t know if there’s a chance it can still be a problem or get worse. I agree that if there’s still a problem (and they’re just covering it up) then Fitz is playing with fire.

If Blackwood is actually healthy as claimed then I can see why he’s going with him.

I can certainly see why we are going with him. But I can also see us not being that much different from last year except perhaps higher scoring. It’s a risk. Vanecek may make a difference too. It’s a time usually for optimism and I won’t troll Fitz and Ruff. My comments were more out of despair and also the hope that the brass really are honest at least with themselves about the quality of the team for the fall.

It has to do with Ruff too. It could be we need to adjust our system going forward if that’s what’s needed to make us at least competitive next year. A 90 point season would be something to hope for; winning more than we lose would make following the club more fun. Above all avoid another season where we are done by the holidays. We’ve had at least 3 years of that in a row. The talk about the time line being 2 or 3 years down the road . . . Please no. We can surely start to be more competitive now. Maybe ???

 

[billingtons ghost]

How about I counter that with my own question

If you can point to a goalie in the past several seasons or even EVER that has done well NOT playing for this team or that is actually a good goalie or has history of being a good goalie in the NHL OTHER than Blackwood (and Bernier, who I thought played fine before he went down for good), maybe then I could give your position a moment of consideration.

And Hammond's FLUKE run 7 years ago doesn't count.

Wedgewood had his first ever average to above average season in the NHL this year, unless you count his 4 game call up which was SIX years ago.

Gillies has no success at the NHL level, he doesn't even get any game time between 2018 and this season. Same goes for Hammond, who has also not seen a second of time since 2018 until this year. He had a brief 2 season stretch of being a good to average goalie, but he was clearly overachieving at that time and it was truly one of the flukiest goalie runs ever.

I don't think Daws would have played well anywhere in the NHL this year, not with that many games that he got, at least.

I had a tough time parsing this.

Daws is a good goalie. He was tearing up the ahl and seemed like a legit answer for us for a short time before his confidence was eroded. Bernier was ok then got shelled and hurt.

Gillies, Hammond, and Domingue we're terrible for us and didn't have enough of a sample size elsewhere but all showed they could compete in the NHL if sheltered to a degree. They all start out ok for a few games before they cave. Kincaid and Wedge both had some nice runs for us before they got exposed to the white hot defensive terribleness and their confidence went away too. Wedge frigging carried a team this year before they caved his head in.

I've never said these were good goalies, but even bad goalies can look great for a long time behind even mediocre teams if they are least play a reasonably deterministic defense.

I mean, is Markstrom as good as his contract? He's a good goalie and he got exposed facing good teams. Shesterkin looked terrible when the Rags didn't play D against the Pens. Even Vas has some games here needed to bounce back from. Mike Smith put on a show, and then cost his team games with nasty turnovers.

We just made the bad look like complete trash, and the mediocre/hurt look bad.

It's a two part thing, man. If goaltending needs to stand on its head for us, we are assuredly back in the lottery bc whatever confidence those guys might come in with might disappear quickly after a few bad games. If goaltending needs to be decent (which it certainly wasn't after our guys were injured) then we've got a shot to make noise.
I just don't think Blackwood/Vanacek can do it all by themselves like maybe Vas could. They shouldn't have to, tho... And I don't see many guys available around the league.

We'd almost be better off with a Mike Smith, Gibson type bc they could shake the young team mistakes off more readily than our young guys. Hope one of our guys matures real fast.

 

[billingtons ghost]

The Wings, I'll give you. But here's something to think about with them. I think the hope was that Nedeljkovic would be a clear cut starter. He played like he was for a lot of last season, but fell off a ton at the end. Now they're kind of in the same stage we were in last summer when Blackwood had a poor year and we signed Bernier. Only their Bernier is Husso.

The Wild have two ''Starters'' even if it's debatable whether either should be starters, but I think they're at least legit 1b types. Coming into this year they certainly are.

Vasi - Elite

Then there's a bunch of guys like Price, Quick, Gibson, Bobrovsky that are getting paid like they're elite because they got their contracts when they were elite.

Blackwood's last two years are worth about $1 million a season? At most?

And had he signed a contract two years ago it might've been Nedjelkovichian.

He came into this season as a favorite for the team Canada goaltending job. I just think you way underestimate what hockey minds around the league see in this kid.

He's an athletic goalie with size. When he's on his game he traps picks better than Cory ever did. If he signs for 3m that's a frigging steal.

 

[billingtons ghost]

His reactions and his battling is all he’s got going for him so far because his fundamentals - angles, positional play, staying compact when he moves - are the weakest I’ve almost ever seen in a goalie who’s been given his responsibilities. If he would just clean up his technical game.

I think 90% if that was injury (concussions, heel, COVID), fatigue (no backup) and just eroded confidence.

There was a three or four game stretch that seemed to break him, where pucks were going in off skates, popping up in the air and bouncing in off his back and all sorts of whacky stuff.

The was an ugly year.

 

[Bleedred]

I had a tough time parsing this.

Daws is a good goalie. He was tearing up the ahl and seemed like a legit answer for us for a short time before his confidence was eroded. Bernier was ok then got shelled and hurt.

Gillies, Hammond, and Domingue we're terrible for us and didn't have enough of a sample size elsewhere but all showed they could compete in the NHL if sheltered to a degree. They all start out ok for a few games before they cave. Kincaid and Wedge both had some nice runs for us before they got exposed to the white hot defensive terribleness and their confidence went away too. Wedge frigging carried a team this year before they caved his head in.

I've never said these were good goalies, but even bad goalies can look great for a long time behind even mediocre teams if they are least play a reasonably deterministic defense.

I mean, is Markstrom as good as his contract? He's a good goalie and he got exposed facing good teams. Shesterkin looked terrible when the Rags didn't play D against the Pens. Even Vas has some games here needed to bounce back from. Mike Smith put on a show, and then cost his team games with nasty turnovers.

We just made the bad look like complete trash, and the mediocre/hurt look bad.

It's a two part thing, man. If goaltending needs to stand on its head for us, we are assuredly back in the lottery bc whatever confidence those guys might come in with might disappear quickly after a few bad games. If goaltending needs to be decent (which it certainly wasn't after our guys were injured) then we've got a shot to make noise.
I just don't think Blackwood/Vanacek can do it all by themselves like maybe Vas could. They shouldn't have to, tho... And I don't see many guys available around the league.

We'd almost be better off with a Mike Smith, Gibson type bc they could shake the young team mistakes off more readily than our young guys. Hope one of our guys matures real fast.

Daws - Yes, he was good in the AHL. He wasn't good in the NHL probably because he's not ready and shouldn't have played in it (at least not that many games) yet.

I don't know what team Wedgewood carried?

Kinkaid is done. His NHL career ended right around when I said it would. Right around age 30. He went to Montreal, picked up right where he left off here (not a huge number of games though), got waived (right around the same time Cory Schneider did) and outside of a couple injury call ups for the Rangers he's been out of the NHL since.

What exactly is a Gibson/Smith type? The actual Mike Smith looks to be spending the last year on his deal on LTIR.

Gibson was a great goalie, but injuries look to have compromised him. His current contract is an extreme detriment. That contract is really on pace to end with him either getting bought out or LTIR'd for good.

 

[Team Concept]

Nice article find here. If I was Ruff I would just alternate between Blackwood and Vanecek the entire season. Let them each start 41 games. Hopefully both stay healthy for the season.

Guest Article: New Jersey Devils Got Great Goalie In Vitek Vanecek

 

[Bleedred]

Nice article find here. If I was Ruff I would just alternate between Blackwood and Vanecek the entire season. Let them each start 41 games. Hopefully both stay healthy for the season.

Guest Article: New Jersey Devils Got Great Goalie In Vitek Vanecek

Don't agree with this at all.

Ruff needs to play whoever is better.

f*** letting them start 41 games.

You're gonna tell me if one of them sucks you can't let the other play more? That's gonna get everybody fired from Ruff to Fitz soon enough if that's how it goes.

Your idea makes no sense, It's almost like the Marty/Cory bullshit of 13-14 and even that wasn't a 41/41 split.

''Yeah! Vanecek is on a great run! Naahhh can't start him tonight! Gotta make sure Blackwood hits 41 games this year!''.

Good thing John Hynes (for ALL of his faults) didn't subscribe to this in 2018 and try to get Cory more starts down the stretch over Kinkaid. We wouldn't have made the playoffs.

You play whoever is better. If Ruff wants to deviate from that then he better get his eulogy ready for his NHL head coaching career.

 

[Bleedred]

We paid a 2nd and 3rd round pick for this player

You let him f***ing play

None of this bullshit placating Blackwood or trying to let him get on a run. See, we've done enough of that shit over the last decade. Starting with sending the 9th overall pick for Cory Schneider, only to start him in barely just over half the games the next year, despite missing not even a week due to injury. All so we could play Marty, who was 41 years old and not any good anymore.

Then when Blackwood was first called up in 18-19 and Kinkaid got traded away, we had to alternate them starts down the stretch. Rather than see more of what we had in Blackwood, who we let make the team out of camp the next year. All so we could give pity starts to a washed up Schneider who had a 100+ game stretch resume of poor goaltending by that point.

Blackwood was going to be here anyway. He's under contract regardless. But he's also no legend (like Brodeur) or anywhere near best player in the history of the organization, and he's also not under contract for 3 more years after this like Schneider was.

No need to give him pity starts, no need to placate him. No need to kiss his ass.

 

[Scorcho]

I can certainly see why we are going with him. But I can also see us not being that much different from last year except perhaps higher scoring. It’s a risk. Vanecek may make a difference too. It’s a time usually for optimism and I won’t troll Fitz and Ruff. My comments were more out of despair and also the hope that the brass really are honest at least with themselves about the quality of the team for the fall.

It has to do with Ruff too. It could be we need to adjust our system going forward if that’s what’s needed to make us at least competitive next year. A 90 point season would be something to hope for; winning more than we lose would make following the club more fun. Above all avoid another season where we are done by the holidays. We’ve had at least 3 years of that in a row. The talk about the time line being 2 or 3 years down the road . . . Please no. We can surely start to be more competitive now. Maybe ???

playoffs or ruff is gone as soon as they're mathematically eliminated imo

 

[Bleedred]

playoffs or ruff is gone as soon as they're mathematically eliminated imo

Well, no one is usually mathematically eliminated until so late in the season that it's too late to fire the coach anyway. The Senators did it to Guy Boucher in March (I think?) one year, but usually the coaches that get fired after the halfway point of the season are teams desperate to try to save their season and stay in the playoff hunt. That happened this year with the Oilers firing Tippett and promoting Woodcroft from the AHL and I remember it happening with Torts when the Rangers hired him and fired Tom Renney. It most famously happened when the Pens fired Therrien and hired Dan Bylsma the year they won the cup.

I don't see how you can bring him back if we miss the playoffs. Unless the f***ers actually dare extend him between now and the end of the season, thus already making him under contract for next year.

 

[BananaGenetics]

playoffs or ruff is gone as soon as they're mathematically eliminated imo

They should first get him some assistants

Would be hard to coach with only one other guy on the bench

 

[Guttersniped]

We paid a 2nd and 3rd round pick for this player

You let him f***ing play

None of this bullshit placating Blackwood or trying to let him get on a run. See, we've done enough of that shit over the last decade. Starting with sending the 9th overall pick for Cory Schneider, only to start him in barely just over half the games the next year, despite missing not even a week due to injury. All so we could play Marty, who was 41 years old and not any good anymore.

Then when Blackwood was first called up in 18-19 and Kinkaid got traded away, we had to alternate them starts down the stretch. Rather than see more of what we had in Blackwood, who we let make the team out of camp the next year. All so we could give pity starts to a washed up Schneider who had a 100+ game stretch resume of poor goaltending by that point.

Blackwood was going to be here anyway. He's under contract regardless. But he's also no legend (like Brodeur) or anywhere near best player in the history of the organization, and he's also not under contract for 3 more years after this like Schneider was.

No need to give him pity starts, no need to placate him. No need to kiss his ass.

No one is asking for “pity starts” dude, you’re just lashing out lol

Some people think he might do fine if healthy and it isn’t a great idea for Vanecek to start +65 games or whatever even if he exceeds expectations.

It’s going to be a 1a/1b situation, but if by some amazing miracle we actually don’t have horrific bad luck with our goalies’ health, it will be competition for play time between the two.

Ruff is for sure a “ride the hot hand” goalie, he’ll go with whoever he thinks will win him games. I would be more worried that he rides a hot goalie into dust rather than “gifts” Blackwood anything.

They didn’t play the shit out of Blackwood in 2018-19 because that was smart load management with a rookie goalie dealing with (you guessed it) injuries.

He had a lower body injury in the game against Arizona on 1/4 and missed 3 games after that and started again on 1/12.

Then between his starts on 1/19 and 2/27, he had 1 start out of a total of 15 games (it was on 2/2).

He got sent down to the AHL and had several starts there (5: 1/25, 2/9, 2/16, 2/17 & 2/22).

…And I’d rather eat ground glass than go over Blackwood’s past yet again. I feel like I’ve done way too many deep dives, I don’t f***ing care anymore, we’ll see how it goes. He has talent, let’s f***ing go (and hopefully an anvil won’t fall on his from the sky the day before camp starts).

I get not having faith that Blackwood can stay healthy but I have less faith in Francouz or Raanta and top contenders are counting on those dudes.

I can not stress enough how shocking it will be if the Cup champs actually go into the season with their current announced two starters. Man, this is a bleak goalie period.

Hell, I have less faith in Kuemper’s durability at 32 (it wasn’t there when he was a younger and better goalie) and some team is going to give him a big long term deal.

 

[Bleedred]

No one is asking for “pity starts” dude, you’re just lashing out lol

Some people think he might do fine if healthy and it isn’t a great idea for Vanecek to start +65 games or whatever even if he exceeds expectations.

It’s going to be a 1a/1b situation, but if by some amazing miracle we actually don’t have horrific bad luck with our goalies’ health, it will be competition for play time between the two.

Ruff is for sure a “ride the hot hand” goalie, he’ll go with whoever he thinks will win him games. I would be more worried that he rides a hot goalie into dust rather than “gifts” Blackwood anything.

They didn’t play the shit out of Blackwood in 2018-19 because that was smart load management with a rookie goalie dealing with (you guessed it) injuries.

He had a lower body injury in the game against Arizona on 1/4 and missed 3 games after that and started again on 1/12.

Then between his starts on 1/19 and 2/27, he had 1 start out of a total of 15 games (it was on 2/2).

He got sent down to the AHL and had several starts there (5: 1/25, 2/9, 2/16, 2/17 & 2/22).

…And I’d rather eat ground glass than go over Blackwood’s past yet again. I feel like I’ve done way too many deep dives, I don’t f***ing care anymore, we’ll see how it goes. He has talent, let’s f***ing go (and hopefully an anvil won’t fall on his from the sky the day before camp starts).

I get not having faith that Blackwood can stay healthy but I have less faith in Francouz or Raanta and top contenders are counting on those dudes.

I can not stress enough how shocking it will be if the Cup champs actually go into the season with their current announced two starters. Man, this is a bleak goalie period.

Hell, I have less faith in Kuemper’s durability at 32 (it wasn’t there when he was a younger and better goalie) and some team is going to give him a big long term deal.

There is a big difference between 41 games like @Team Concept suggested and 65 games.

Forget staying healthy, I don't have faith Blackwood will perform well if healthy any more than I do that he'll stay healthy.

I think he's no count. I think he SUCKS to put it nicely.

And I was referring to the stretch late in the season. I'm pretty sure they alternated starts between Schneider and Blackwood after Kinkaid got sent away post deadline.

I don't think either of them started consecutive games from that point and if they did, it wasn't a whole lot.

That's when we gave Schneider the bullshit pity starts and Rayjean Shero snorted all the Cory dust and (remember the .920% over his last 15-20 games or whatever it was?), should have f***ing bought him out and lost his job before he could.

Between February 27th and the end of the season on April 6th, neither Schneider nor Blackwood played consecutive games for the rest of the year. They alternated every game, no matter how well they played or not played. I forgot to count exactly how many games there were in total in this stretch, but I'm pretty sure I counted 4 back to backs.

 

[Guttersniped]

There is a big difference between 41 games like @Team Concept suggested and 65 games.

Forget staying healthy, I don't have faith Blackwood will perform well if healthy any more than I do that he'll stay healthy.

I think he's no count. I think he SUCKS to put it nicely.

And I was referring to the stretch late in the season. I'm pretty sure they alternated starts between Schneider and Blackwood after Kinkaid got sent away post deadline.

I don't think either of them started consecutive games from that point and if they did, it wasn't a whole lot.

That's when we gave Schneider the bullshit pity starts and Rayjean Shero snorted all the Cory dust and (remember the .920% over his last 15-20 games or whatever it was?), should have f***ing bought him out and lost his job before he could.

Between February 27th and the end of the season on April 6th, neither Schneider nor Blackwood played consecutive games for the rest of the year. They alternated every game, no matter how well they played or not played. I forgot to count exactly how many games there were in total in this stretch, but I'm pretty sure I counted 4 back to backs.

They said it was game management at the time with Blackwood because he was young rookie who had an injury. It had zero to do with giving starts to Cory, they were trying to manage MBW.

They did nothing wrong there, I have no problem with teams being careful with rookies or recently injured goalies if they think that’s the right thing to do.

Yes, Schneider’s giant time bomb was a big contributor to both Shero’s & Hynes’ downfall.

That has nothing to do with the decision to not overplay a rookie who just turned 22 years old, and who was dealing with at least one minor injury at some point, when they didn’t have to.

I just don’t see how riding Blackwood harder after 2/23 would have changed anything for the better.

 

[NJDevs26]

I wouldn't split them evenly for the whole year but you can start the season that way. Blackwood hasn't proven he can stay healthy for a full season and Vanecek hasn't had to carry the load for a full season yet. Eventually one of them will get hurt or their game will go to hell (hopefully both those things don't happen at the same time - i.e. one getting hurt and the other sucking) and then the other guy can play more at that point.

 

[Bleedred]

They said it was game management at the time with Blackwood because he was young rookie who had an injury. It had zero to do with giving starts to Cory, they were trying to manage MBW.

They did nothing wrong there, I have no problem with teams being careful with rookies or recently injured goalies if they think that’s the right thing to do.

Yes, Schneider’s giant time bomb was a big contributor to both Shero’s & Hynes’ downfall.

That has nothing to do with the decision to not overplay a rookie who just turned 22 years old, and who was dealing with at least one minor injury at some point, when they didn’t have to.

I just don’t see how riding Blackwood harder after 2/23 would have changed anything for the better.

My critique was always that we didn't get enough of a look at Blackwood to be handing him a spot the next year if Cory Schneider was his goalie partner. And Schneider's late season surge didn't mean shit and when you see what happened.... It wasn't shit. We should have either let Blackwood play a few more games to end that year or have made another move in the offseason with Schneider-some other guy to start the season and not Blackwood and Schneider. That way when Schneider blew up, Blackwood would have been up anyway in November, but with another guy and not Domingue.

It's better for us now that Schneider is only on our books until 2024 and not 2025 with his dead cap hit, but actually trying to compete in 19-20 with that tandem was a joke and it's the only reason I laughed at Shero being fired that year. I think he did a pretty good job while he was here, but he lived by that sword and he died by it.

How does that relate to current time? Well, it really doesn't, but I'm skeptical that the alternation thing wasn't them trying to see what last bit they had in Cory, who either shouldn't have been on the team the next year or should have been on the team with more of a safety net than Blackwood (and Blackwood wound up being the safety net to Schneider) behind him.

The Brodeur thing in 2013-2014 was definitely pity starts.

I want the BEST goalie playing the most games by a significant margin and not a 50/50 split. I have not much faith that this ''Best goalie'' is going to be Mackenzie Blackwood.

 

[Bleedred]

I wouldn't split them evenly for the whole year but you can start the season that way. Blackwood hasn't proven he can stay healthy for a full season and Vanecek hasn't had to carry the load for a full season yet. Eventually one of them will get hurt or their game will go to hell (hopefully both those things don't happen at the same time - i.e. one getting hurt and the other sucking) and then the other guy can play more at that point.

I say start with Vanecek.

Blackwood deserves very little benefit of the doubt with how his last two years went.

And his return from injury, while I don't think it's enough to say he will or won't be better this year based on those games, the last game was an embarrassment.

That finale against Detroit embodied everything about how f***ed Blackwood's play has been for the last 55 games.

I didn't think he was THAT bad against Ottawa in his first start back from injury. He allowed 5 goals on 30-something shots I think and one softy on the power play.

His game against Detroit pissed me off so much. If you go back and read the GDT you'll see everytime his save percentage went above .900% for that game he kept allowing another goal to knock it right back down. And I was calling it every time. ''Welp, he's back up above .900% for the game, in before yet another goal'' and it's almost ridiculous how it just kept happening. It was so predictable.

I think we really need to think about who we start early in the year and how the tandem is managed. We haven't had as many problems starting the season in a hole over the last 10 years as we have starting out good and ending up in a hole. Save for the 13-14 season and the start to the 19-20 season. It's usually us treading water for a month or two and plumetting. That was the case the last two years, as well as 18-19, 16-17, 14-15, 12-13, all non-playoff years. I think in Hynes first season we might have also lost the first 3 or 4 before turning it around and treading water until Valentine's Day.

 

[Scorcho]

Well, no one is usually mathematically eliminated until so late in the season that it's too late to fire the coach anyway. The Senators did it to Guy Boucher in March (I think?) one year, but usually the coaches that get fired after the halfway point of the season are teams desperate to try to save their season and stay in the playoff hunt. That happened this year with the Oilers firing Tippett and promoting Woodcroft from the AHL and I remember it happening with Torts when the Rangers hired him and fired Tom Renney. It most famously happened when the Pens fired Therrien and hired Dan Bylsma the year they won the cup.

I don't see how you can bring him back if we miss the playoffs. Unless the f***ers actually dare extend him between now and the end of the season, thus already making him under contract for next year.

fair enough - christmas is probably a better indicator

 

[JrFischer54]

Trading/signing Gusev and giving up assets for Grabner and Maroon at the 2017 deadline are prime examples. Subban also counts. If he didn’t think this team could compete he wouldn’t have made those moves.

Are you insane. You really thinking trading for gusev signaled a change from rebuild to win now? Lol that is so amazing lol. Grabber and maroon were added at the deadline. You know for a playoff push. That didn’t exactly mean he thought the rebuild was over either but rather why not try to WIN and make the playoffs? Man these tales are ultra hot even by hf standards

The Devils just got the Caps’ starting. This is a win-win. ( Not as good of a goalie but better timing/price)This is low key the Cory Schneider trade. They moved the better goalie, and you have to believe they are going after Kuemper and Campbell. Which could end up somewhere else.

Iike I said before this is basically the goalie version of mango mojo gusev trades.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Iike I said before this is basically the goalie version of mango mojo gusev trades.

This is literally baseless. You repeating it over and over doesnt make it true,