Devils discussion (news, notes and speculation) - offseason part II

[AfroThunder396]

I don’t think Palat is washed, but a forward making 6M needs to produce points. Having a sick Corsi isn’t good enough. There are flashes of the guy from Tampa every so often, and I get that he was banged up most of the year, but still. There’s no reason he can’t get 20 goals/40 points. On the plus side, he looked pretty awesome at the Worlds this year, I think he has some gas left.

I would be fine bringing back Nosek for another year. Once he got healthy it was like night and day. A whole year of that would be great.

Lazar is awesome, he needs to be back.

It sucks that Mercer and Holtz have to play in the bottom-6 but quite frankly they haven’t earned anything better. Holtz has shown he’s an NHL player but not much more than that. Mercer’s stock has fallen pretty significantly. It’s obvious that, while valuable to the team, he’s not a core piece. He has a lot of work to do to earn trust back.

Bastian and Tierney can kick rocks. Worthless. It shouldn’t be hard to replace either. Sucks we have to live with MacDermid but whatever, what’s done is done.

 

[JimEIV]

It sucks that Mercer and Holtz have to play in the bottom-6 but quite frankly they haven’t earned anything better.

Mercer hasn't earned anything better?

Mercer got kicked down after having a 56 point sophomore season. Edit: I almost wonder if it was done in contract year on purpose.

And lumping Mercer into the same category as Holtz is insane.

 

[Triumph]

A guy like kuemper getting a first as a one year rental (negates markstroms age issue) and Calgary really not having to trade markstrom really locks it in as a likely first round pick in terms of trade value for me. It is what it is. Cost of doing business

Sorry, Kuemper and Markstrom were nowhere close in value, and the 10th overall pick is nowhere close to the 32nd overall pick.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Hate? I think he's well loved, and rightfully so.

Jim has stated numerous times that Lazar is an extra at best. He doesn't like this player for some reason, which is weird considering what type of players we know he loves.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Mercer hasn't earned anything better?

Mercer got kicked down after having a 56 point sophomore season. Edit: I almost wonder if it was done in contract year on purpose.

And lumping Mercer into the same category as Holtz is insane.

It was done because he wasn't playing well for long stretches of time, which was discussed here before.

Didn't you just admit we need two wingers to play with the core 4? So you're effectively admitting you don't think Mercer should be there either?

I actually do think he can play wing in the top 6, but that he just had a really rough go of it last year. Some are down on his ability to create for himself, but I think he can get back to form if he works on his strength in board/puck battles and shoots more confidently.

 

[Forge]

Sorry, Kuemper and Markstrom were nowhere close in value, and the 10th overall pick is nowhere close to the 32nd overall pick.

good thing nobody mentioned the 10th overall pick then?

I'd much rather move the protected 25 first as the headliner in Markstrom deal than I would Gritsyuk given how close he is to potentially helping the team, but I wouldn't be overly upset if he was the key piece going back.

 

[JimEIV]

It was done because he wasn't playing well for long stretches of time, which was discussed here before.

Bullshit... he started the season in the bottom 6 for Holtz. I complained about it every day from preseason to beyond Day 1 of the regular season.

And he was one of our best playoff performers...so there was literally no reason to bump him down at the beginning of the year.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Jim has stated numerous times that Lazar is an extra at best. He doesn't like this player for some reason, which is weird considering what type of players we know he loves.

It's funny because he loves Miles Wood and their production was practically equal last year. Lazar had to play above his paygrade due to the bevy of injuries we had up front, but he's a much better player than I expected when we acquired him. Perfect 4th liner, does nothing pretty but happily does all of the dirty little things. Kills penalties, good hockey sense, plays center or wing. No issues with him whatsoever.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Meier-Hischier-Bratt
Debrusk-Hughes-Mercer
Palat-Haula-Amadio
Trenin-Lazar-Foote

signing 3 UFA forwards is probably too much but man would I love something like this (I just assume Holtz is gone this summer)

 

[Better Call Sal]

Bullshit... he started the season in the bottom 6 for Holtz. I complained about it every day from preseason to beyond Day 1 of the regular season.

You mean the preseason? He started the season with Nico and Timo and they were not good together. It was a short time together, but they were practically the worst line on the ice if I remember. Bratt-Jack-Toffoli was the other line in the top 6.

I don't need to go too far down this road again, we literally had discussions about Dawson in this thread 10 days ago.

 

[Triumph]

good thing nobody mentioned the 10th overall pick then?

Fair, but Calgary is very unlikely to want a protected 2025 1st in a deal for Markstrom.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

Mercer hasn't earned anything better?

Mercer got kicked down after having a 56 point sophomore season. Edit: I almost wonder if it was done in contract year on purpose.

And lumping Mercer into the same category as Holtz is insane.

I wonder what Mercer does if he was a rookie this year on this team. Does he have the same stats to end the year? HIGHLY doubtful. Mercer's rookie season should not enter this discussion imo. All we can do is compare this year when they both played on the same team.

This is coming from the place of me liking both players, not knocking anyone.

 

[MartyOwns]

2023-24 NHL Farm System Rankings (Final)

Note: The “Training Camp Sleepers” addition in the tables below is for two top AHL prospects on the older side who are among those closest to an NHL job. They weren’t added to the Top-10 portion because I wanted to make room for younger types and it grew tiresome adding the same names to every...

thedraftanalyst.substack.com

pretty good farm team rankings from the main boards. i thought our ranking was fair, while the islanders ranking was hilariously accurate.

 

[Devils731]

Mercer hasn't earned anything better?

Mercer got kicked down after having a 56 point sophomore season. Edit: I almost wonder if it was done in contract year on purpose.

And lumping Mercer into the same category as Holtz is insane.

I expect Mercer to be better but he was really poor most of last year.

I’m sure the Devils were hoping he could be a top-6 guy and be a leader on PP2 but instead he struggled to maintain control or recover pucks. He we given chances to play with the top guys and couldn’t grab it last year.

I still expect him to be a top 6 guy who can be a complimentary PP player but last year was rough for him.

Holtz and Mercer both provided basically nothing beyond their production last year. The fact that Mercer only had slightly better production than Holtz sadly does make them comparable last year. I expect a bounce back from Mercer and would be happy to gamble on him contract wise.

 

[JimEIV]

It's funny because he loves Miles Wood and their production was practically equal last year. Lazar had to play above his paygrade due to the bevy of injuries we had up front, but he's a much better player than I expected when we acquired him. Perfect 4th liner, does nothing pretty but happily does all of the dirty little things. Kills penalties, good hockey sense, plays center or wing. No issues with him whatsoever.

Miles Wood and Lazar do not have similar production.

Lazar has 59 points in his last 240 games from 2021 through 2024 with 12:23 ATOI

With Wood missing an entire year in 2022, Wood has 78 points in 208 games with 13:28 ATOI 2021 through 2024

Lazar having a career year has similar numbers to Wood...if you disregard Lazar's and Wood's entire careers I guess they have similar production?

 

[AfroThunder396]

Mercer hasn't earned anything better?

Mercer got kicked down after having a 56 point sophomore season. Edit: I almost wonder if it was done in contract year on purpose.

And lumping Mercer into the same category as Holtz is insane.

Mercer got kicked down because he played like garbage, nothing more and nothing less.

He started the season in the top-6 and was pointless in the first 10 games of the year. He had 7 goals and 5 assists in 30 games at Christmas and ended up getting sat that game. He almost certainly would have been a healthy scratch if it wasn’t for his Ironman streak.

Mercer’s defensive game has always been enormously overrated, but I don’t mind ignoring that if he’s getting points. Once he stopped getting points he became a negative.

Mercer was legitimately not playing at an NHL level the first ~half of the year. He’s a big part of the reason our early portion of the season went so badly, they were expecting him to produce at a top-6 level but instead he was getting outpaced by guys like Holtz and McLeod.

EDIT: Not sure why half my post got cut off, but here’s the rest of it.

 

[Forge]

Fair, but Calgary is very unlikely to want a protected 2025 1st in a deal for Markstrom.

I'm not sure Calgary potentially not wanting a 25 pick is really the point, but if they want prospects instead of picks I'd be willing to have that discussion with them. LIS, if they want Gritsyuk as the center piece of that trade, ultimately that's fine for me.

If they want a pick this year, they are going to have a limited number of options, but they may be able to swing it. Personally, I don't buy the Toronto / Ottawa options. I think Toronto will ultimately look at other options in goal and I just don't take the Ottawa stuff seriously.

They haven't had issues adding future picks in previous transactions so I'm not sure why they would be drawing the line here, but more power to them. A pick this year, even if the draft is considered to be quite meh at the back half of the first round, is probably more appealing. GMs are often like 5 year olds on a sugar rush.

They have two weeks to get it done for a pick this year. I'm going to guess that it doesn't happen for a first this year.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Miles Wood and Lazar do not have similar production.

Lazar has 59 points in his last 240 games from 2021 through 2024 with 12:23 ATOI

With Wood missing an entire year in 2022, Wood has 78 points in 208 games with 13:28 ATOI 2021 through 2024

Lazar having a career year has similar numbers to Wood...if you disregard Lazar's and Wood's entire careers I guess they have similar production?

Hence why I said last year. I'm aware of the differences in their production over their careers, but it doesn't make it less amusing to call Lazar an extra when he brings more as a 200 foot player than Wood.

And for the record, I like both players.

 

[CalamityX23]

Meier-Hischier-Bratt
Debrusk-Hughes-Mercer
Palat-Haula-Amadio
Trenin-Lazar-Foote

signing 3 UFA forwards is probably too much but man would I love something like this (I just assume Holtz is gone this summer)

Throw in DuClair's name into the ring!

 

[CalamityX23]

Speaking of useless first round picks, I heard the name Matteau mentioned in regards to the AHL conference finals game last night. I figured it had to be that Matteau and if it wasn't, then it was another spelling of Matteau or something, but I was pretty sure it was that Matteau.

And it was.

Apparently he spent last year playing in both the Swedish and German leagues. But he was back in North America with the Cleveland Monsters, the AHL Blue Jackets this year. They must like him over there, because he had played for AHL Cleveland in 19-20/a call up and 9 games with the NHL team, and then he played 14 games with the NHL Blue Jackets in 20-21 and I'm assuming was a taxi squad members the entire year, as he's credited with 0 AHL games played that season.

The pick that should've never been... I still cannot understand the logic in KEEPING that pick when we could've forfeited it right there and use our actual high lotto pick that was forfeited instead.... jfc. That wasn't Lou's best there at all.... completely flabbergasted in who signed off on that.

At least Matteau played for the Devils LOL..... including Ty Smith as well, thus making Stillman the most useless yet!

 

[None Shall Pass]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1801662206842458373

 

[Devs3cups]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1801662206842458373

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Fitz really does love to yap in the summer doesn't he

 

[JimEIV]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1801662206842458373

At least they understand the problem.

 

[Zippy316]

The way I see it, we can either:

1.) Play Haula with Jack and bring in a new 3C
3.) Bring in a possession positive top-6 forward and play Haula at 3C

I would prefer the later because I don’t think Haula is a good enough top-6 winger. He doesn’t play that role to elevate the line, but to cover up for Jack. I’d rather get a legit top-6 guy and play Haula where he belongs.

That said, there are a few guys who appeal to me as possible 3C options. Stephenson, Henrique, Monahan, Wennberg. But anytime a quality center hits the open market they’re almost always overpaid and I’d prefer not to be the one to do it.

My thought is you get a middle six forward and a bottom six forward that can get you through the season. It still gives you time to evaluate Holtz, Foote, and Clarke to see if they can fit anywhere. Probably need an upgrade in the top six, but you can address that at the deadline.

Let’s just say Henrique + Trenin. Might not be those two players but I expect a versatile top nine forward addition and a bottom six forward addition.

Meier - Hischier - Bratt
Haula - Hughes - Mercer
Palat - Henrique - Holtz
Foote - Lazar - Trenin
Bastian - McDermid

I would be comfortable rolling that in the season. Maybe you make an upgrade at the deadline to add another dynamic scorer if you feel like you need one.