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

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

We're most likely getting Carolina Round 1 this year, gotta get home ice and solidify the bottom 6 before April. If we walk into a series with them with this same bottom 6, we're going to destroyed in 5-6 games considering they're the best in the league at neutering our top stars

 

[Devs3cups]

We're most likely getting Carolina Round 1 this year, gotta get home ice and solidify the bottom 6 before April. If we walk into a series with them with this same bottom 6, we're going to destroyed in 5-6 games considering they're the best in the league at neutering our top stars

I hate this playoff format lol

 

[Incharge1976]

Do you pay for the VPN? I’ve never used one. I know there are some free ones but I’m sure you get what you pay for

Surfshark is $2 a month. I use it for kodi and iptv. Works just as well as others.

 

[MadDevil]

Put Toews with Haula and Palat and call it the Geezer Line.

 

[My3Sons]

We're most likely getting Carolina Round 1 this year, gotta get home ice and solidify the bottom 6 before April. If we walk into a series with them with this same bottom 6, we're going to destroyed in 5-6 games considering they're the best in the league at neutering our top stars

I blame MacDermid. If he’d attack the Canes like he’s supposed to they’d have too many injuries to be effective but he’s so passive.

 

[NJDevs26]

I hate this playoff format lol

I don’t think it matters all that much this year tbh…the Florida, Toronto and Tampa bracket aren’t exactly much easier than having to play one of the Carolina-Washington block

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

I hate this playoff format lol

Doesn't really matter, them getting TB on the wildcard is arguably equally as bad if not worse with how they matchup with TB lately lol

 

[Better Call Sal]

I'm not worried about any opponent. It's putting the cart before the horse. We've shown we can play with and beat some of these teams people are worried about. We beat Washington twice on the road. We beat Carolina twice at home. We beat Florida twice on the road.

I believe this team is good enough in all facets to play with these teams and win playoff games. The question will be figuring out the best lineup possible up front. And we already can expect that we'll have an addition or two there by the deadline.

If they keep doing what is making them successful, the goals will come back. They have a good process in place.

 

[Zippy316]

The depth scoring hopefully corrects itself with deadline acquisitions. I’m expecting at least one or two from Fitzgerald, especially since the defense is already 10 players deep with White, DeSimone, Hatakka, and Nemec behind our top six.

But in the meantime, they really need to spread the wealth to something like this:

Palat - Hughes - Bratt
Tatar/Meier - Hischier - Noesen
Tatar/Meier - Haula - Mercer
Cotter - Lazar - Bastian

The third line as constructed just doesn’t make sense. No one can drive play and it’s just Cotter skating the puck around the offensive zone with nothing happening aside from a low percentage shot to the net hoping for some garbage goals.

Meier on line 3 could get that line going since he’s rolling right now. At the very least, move Tatar with Haula-Mercer so he can drive play on that line. Cotter needs to go down to line 4 and just have them muck it up.

 

[Better Call Sal]

The depth scoring hopefully corrects itself with deadline acquisitions. I’m expecting at least one or two from Fitzgerald, especially since the defense is already 10 players deep with White, DeSimone, Hatakka, and Nemec behind our top six.

But in the meantime, they really need to spread the wealth to something like this:

Palat - Hughes - Bratt
Tatar/Meier - Hischier - Noesen
Tatar/Meier - Haula - Mercer
Cotter - Lazar - Bastian

The third line as constructed just doesn’t make sense. No one can drive play and it’s just Cotter skating the puck around the offensive zone with nothing happening aside from a low percentage shot to the net hoping for some garbage goals.

Meier on line 3 could get that line going since he’s rolling right now. At the very least, move Tatar with Haula-Mercer so he can drive play on that line. Cotter needs to go down to line 4 and just have them muck it up.

I would much rather Tatar-Haula-Mercer and keep Timo with Nico and Noesen. They've shown they're a very strong line together, and I would prefer to see them stay together. Tatar can push play forward, and though a small sample size, I think that unit was successful in driving play together as well. Give them a little bit more rope and push Cotter down to the 4th line.

 

[Zippy316]

I would much rather Tatar-Haula-Mercer and keep Timo with Nico and Noesen. They've shown they're a very strong line together, and I would prefer to see them stay together. Tatar can push play forward, and though a small sample size, I think that unit was successful in driving play together as well. Give them a little bit more rope and push Cotter down to the 4th line.

To be honest, I agree. Logically makes the most sense to make a minor fix by moving Tatar up. In theory, he should help some of the issues the third line has, so I don’t quite understand why it hasn’t been done sooner.

It’s just strange because the bottom six as a whole has good pieces, they just don’t quite mesh well together offensively.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

Surfshark is $2 a month. I use it for kodi and iptv. Works just as well as others.

Have you tried SurfShark with ESPN+ yet? Worked for me for two seasons, but not this season so far.

 

[MB3]

i keep thinking washington will fall off of enough of a cliff that they’re in the 2-3 matchup. I really think it’ll be devils/carolina in the one slot, but after 3 regulation losses in a row I’m starting to wonder about the former.

 

[Incharge1976]

Have you tried SurfShark with ESPN+ yet? Worked for me for two seasons, but not this season so far.

I'll try tonight on ESPN+ and let you know. I'm on IPTV and get all the games there so I never checked.

 

[forceten]

I'd take a flyer on Toews as a bottom six player if the money fit ?

VPN services - ExpressVPN is a paid service and can work on devices (phones, laptops, and AppleTV-type boxes) or on a router to obfuscate traffic on the entire network. In my house I have two ethernet networks - one is permanently on a VPN connection and the other is regular internet. ExpressVPN overwrote the firmware of the VPN network's router, and then provides that VPN service to the whole network. Now, Express has clients for AppleTV etc that it did not have before, so you may not need it.

A caveat is that some of the services are cottoning on to this, and know that some of the source IP addresses are associated with VPN services, and block it anyway! So that's a bummer.

Another alternative is WireGuard. If you have a friend or family member elsewhere who has a TP-Link Deco router, they can enable a WireGuard server on the router that would allow you to connect to that network as a client and tunnel through their Internet. This is entirely free. Alternatively, you can buy a $35 Raspberry Pi computer, configure it to be a VPN WireGuard host, and send it to that person to plug into their network and tunnel in that way.

There are ways.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

i keep thinking washington will fall off of enough of a cliff that they’re in the 2-3 matchup. I really think it’ll be devils/carolina in the one slot, but after 3 regulation losses in a row I’m starting to wonder about the former.

Idk why Devils fans think this, they're a legit a monster of a team this year. Yeah, they're shooting at a % stupid rate but their backend is the best in the league and they have scoring depth all over the lineup. Only thing they can really do to upgrade is say get a depth goalie because Lindgren/Thompson could get hurt or fall off the deep end. The Thompson add was one of the best ones in the league. Kinda wish we got Thompson in the Holtz/Schmid package but he got traded earlier in the day on day 2 at the draft last year.

 

[forceten]

Idk why Devils fans think this, they're a legit a monster of a team this year. Yeah, they're shooting at a % stupid rate but their backend is the best in the league and they have scoring depth all over the lineup. Only thing they can really do to upgrade is say get a depth goalie because Lindgren/Thompson could get hurt or fall off the deep end. The Thompson add was one of the best ones in the league. Kinda wish we got Thompson in the Holtz/Schmid package but he got traded earlier in the day on day 2 at the draft last year.

It definitely seems like - in hindsight - there were some attractive goalie options. Stolarz (30), Thompson (27) - would be a nice tandem that we could've had for a while. But that's hindsight! But the bummer is that Stolarz is from Edison NJ and Thompson was in our system!

 

[Better Call Sal]

To be honest, I agree. Logically makes the most sense to make a minor fix by moving Tatar up. In theory, he should help some of the issues the third line has, so I don’t quite understand why it hasn’t been done sooner.

It’s just strange because the bottom six as a whole has good pieces, they just don’t quite mesh well together offensively.

To Keefe's credit, he seems to really have given lines as much time as possible to try and establish any sort of chemistry. I can't remember the last time a coach didn't tinker with the lineup as much as he has. The defense has been virtually untouched all season, and for good reason.

I actually like that he has gone about things this way. I don't expect him to let things continue though if the scoring continues to dry up across the board.

 

[MB3]

Idk why Devils fans think this, they're a legit a monster of a team this year.

Yeah, they're shooting at a % stupid rate

you asked the question and then immediately answered the question.

 

[Devils731]

Idk why Devils fans think this, they're a legit a monster of a team this year. Yeah, they're shooting at a % stupid rate but their backend is the best in the league and they have scoring depth all over the lineup. Only thing they can really do to upgrade is say get a depth goalie because Lindgren/Thompson could get hurt or fall off the deep end. The Thompson add was one of the best ones in the league. Kinda wish we got Thompson in the Holtz/Schmid package but he got traded earlier in the day on day 2 at the draft last year.

Washington has a worse record in their last 10 than the Devils. So does Carolina.

Not totally in response to this post but to the whole convo about the Devils falling off due to losing the last 3 and Washington being so strong.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think Washington looks a little better than they’ve played due to shots finding the back of the net. Everyone seems better when shots are finding the back of the net.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

you asked the question and then immediately answered the question.

Even if that shooting rate goes down, they're still probably going to finish ahead of us, so no it's not. Also, once again, their defense alone will keep them in games. Their metrics in totality are elite as a team. @Guttersniped posted their metrics the other day in the OoT and they're top 10 in every statistic you can think of when it comes to being a good team

Washington has a worse record in their last 10 than the Devils. So does Carolina.

Not totally in response to this post but to the whole convo about the Devils falling off due to losing the last 3 and Washington being so strong.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think Washington looks a little better than they’ve played due to shots finding the back of the net. Everyone seems better when shots are finding the back of the net.

I never said the Devils were bad?

And the Devils issues from the start of the year are the same issues to now. They're a very good team as well but it's up to Fitz to fix the issues mid year. The defense is awesome but can't expect them to put in killer defensive efforts the whole year, it's just not feasible over 82 games. Would be nice if they had some depth scoring instead of having to acquire at the deadline but them's the breaks with roster construction sometimes lol

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

It definitely seems like - in hindsight - there were some attractive goalie options. Stolarz (30), Thompson (27) - would be a nice tandem that we could've had for a while. But that's hindsight! But the bummer is that Stolarz is from Edison NJ and Thompson was in our system!

I was on the Thompson train ever since Hill signed that extension after the Cup. I'm not gonna fault Fitz for going after Markstrom because he couldn't go with another goalie who's never had a true run in net to be the starter after Vanecek. He was going to get fired if he didn't land a consistent NHL goalie with a track record, he probably also gets fired if Markstrom doesn't pan out this year, but he 100% gets fired if he went with say Stolarz and Thompson and they flopped. He also tried for Askarov too so I can't totally fault him for not looking at the future in net. Getting Markstrom and prob getting a younger backup is the only other way he could've went about it, he did the most realistic thing he could've in net. But yeah, hindsight is hindsight lol

 

[Better Call Sal]

Curious which play this was on. I vaguely recall one he got called for and I just assumed he was clumsy.

 

[Omar Little]

Speaking of Hamilton. What about a trade of Hamilton for Spencer Knight and like a 2nd round pick in the offseason.

 

[Triumph]

Curious which play this was on. I vaguely recall one he got called for and I just assumed he was clumsy.

It was against Carolina I think, the Devils had an odd man rush and he was taken down behind the play and he sold it.