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

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Devs3cups said:
I’m actually quite shocked we’re still in that good of a spot standings wise.
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Starting hot, banking points, and having other teams chasing you is a huge structural advantage. That stat about teams in a playoff position at Thanksgiving tells us something because it reflects how the race works year after year. No matter what the point totals are apparently.

How I wish we could have squeaked out maybe two more wins vs. like San Jose and Anaheim. A six point cushion would be ten. But reality is even a 6 point cushion is large and hard to overcome when the teams behind you all have to play each other too. Our head to head games with those clubs become very very important in that connection.

1/3 of the season is left. How we play in these last 27 games (more or less) will be the story of this year.
 
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longislanddevil said:
That’s the feeling I get, as well. He’s a playmaker and creative but who is he setting up? He wouldn’t fit with Jack and Bratt…isn’t really good defensively. I agree that the value would be if he could unlock Meier.
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Colorado has been slammed by injuries and he’s floundered with the parade of randos he’s played with.

He didn’t do that great when he got to play with Rantanen either though, though Rantanen wasn’t all that good 5v5 this year in general.

He’s a bit of a tweener center, he doesn’t drive play offensively and isn’t a defensive center. Unlike Haula he doesn’t PK and is bad at faceoffs.

It would be another guy who doesn’t shoot the puck much and it would continue Fitz’s trend of not caring about making the team faster. He doesn’t play with a lot of pace.

We have wingers who could use a playmaking center though, Haula very much isn’t that.
 
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ZachaFlockaFlame said:
No player is showing up for a full 82 + playoffs, the game is too brutal for that.
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Meier 1 goal in the past 30 days
Bratt 2 goals in the past 30 days
Palat 3
Mercer 3 goals 0 assists

If Nico didn't have 5 and Jack 8, your top 6 is a complete wipeout.

When Cotter + Noesen + Tatar have the same amount of goals as Meier Bratt Palat and more than your whole D corps combined. That's a bad month.
 
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What are the warts people are seeing. Before we fix everything, we need to know what's wrong. Here are my thoughts:

Goalie
- Doesn't seem to be the main issue. Do I wish Jake Allen wasn't flopping around as much and a bit more consisten? Yes, but he's top 10 in Goals Saved Above Expected per 60 (higher when excluding min games played people)

Defense
- This, in my opinion, is where it's really going bad
- Dougie is crazy slow and it feels like he is panicking way more than usual in the d-zone. He's #5 of Giveaways among defenseman (Weegar, Bouchard, Karlsson, Theodore, Hamilton). He's 189 of 192 on goals above expected (Quinn Hughes is at 8). He's #1 in shots per 60.
- Brenden Dillon is hitting people (#8), blocking shots (#73) but literally 192 out of 192 on takeaways (Luke is our best in that). not going to kill him, but probably a #2 d-man is a stretch for Dillon
- Pesce has regressed to me. He seems weaker, slower, and less sure. Is it a pairing problem? injury?
- As a whole, the passing looks slower and less sure
- Jonas was a big loss
- Luke has hit a little bit of a wall but still does some elite things and I continue to believe as I did last year that his 1v1 defense is elite.
- If they could find a taker for Dougie, I'm all in on his departure despite what he brings in the o-zone

Offense in future post.
 
Offense:
- Lazar, Bastian, Tatar: They are all bad - unplayable in my opinion. Tatar, in 50 games has 12 point, doesn't block shots, doesn't takeaway pucks, middle of the pack on giveaways (per 60 its bad)
- Bastian, probably the least bad, has 8 points, has volunteered to be beaten like a rented mule by the rest of the league, but hits, blocks shots, doesn't give the puck away,
- Lazar, probably the worst has 4 points in 31 games, not blocking shots this year like he did last year, and seems to have lost a step (this could all be injury related, but don't play him)
- Cotter - streaky, surprising skill and team's leading hitter. Sort of living up to expectations
- Dowling - smart, fast player that I wish was a little bigger and had some finish to his game. 5 points in 38 games sucks
- Mercer - I am not going to beat a dead horse. For his ice-time, he needs to be better. He and Timo ( excluding Jack) give the puck away more than any other forward. Jack is like double. He's beyond stupid with the puck on this team and #4 in the league (#1 is Kuch)
- Timo has off games where he looks slow as crap, but I think he's fine for what he's been historically
- Bratt = stud
- Jack = generally awesome, but just feels the need to overplay when things get bad to a ridiculous level (just keep maturing)
- Nico = favorite, no issue my man
- Palat - A first line winger cannot have 22 points. He's improved from the start of the season, but it's just not enough for the role he's being asked to play. He blocks shots, takes the puck. I like him on the team.
- Noesen - slow, but feisty - seems to be doing what is asked
- Haula - TBD - pre-injury return looked as bad as Lazar
 
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SteveCangialosi123 said:
This next game is pretty huge for Nemec. Hatakka is close and a more natural Siegenthaler replacement. We’re not going to wreck the left/right shot balance to squeeze Nemec in if he remains such a massive liability.
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It is big maybe for the fan base sanity lol. In a sense we hope he doesn't look like dog crap again.

But I really think once Santeri is game ready he is going to to play.
 
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billingtons ghost said:
This is the old 'luck' argument, but the reason he's not shooting 12% could be bc he's become a perimeter non threat player who isn't creating for himself anymore and isn't in a position to score. Or it could be bc we don't get shots to the net for him to get rebound chances, or it could be that his linemates don't make space for him. Idk. It could be allot of things.
Diminished ice time. Lack of takeaways (12 this year, 49 his last year as a Shark... And his giveaways are about the same..

I'm not going to hold my breath. He's not winning puck battles, he's rarely in position to deflect a puck and he's not getting shit for second chance rebounds.

He might regress to his mean, or maybe this his regression to the mean.
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SteveCangialosi123 said:
I very much doubt more of his chances are coming from the perimeter than earlier in his career. These are just things that are said when the puck doesn’t go in.
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Here’s shots charts and finishing for every full season of Meier’s career.

I also threw in Frozen Tools Player Usage chart which shows offense zone starts & Quality of Competition.

Here’s an explainer of Hockey Viz’s chart if you have questions: link

He’s getting to the net still but he needs to get to the front and slot more. (Edit: Changed this comment after fixing chart mix-up lol.)

I agree he doesn’t win puck battles nearly as much as I would like for a big forward though, I don’t even understand why he sucks at that.

EDIT: Put the correct charts in for 2023-24, sorry about the mix-up.

Hockey Viz
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Hockey Viz: This Chart is Overall Season
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NEW JERSEY SHOT CHARTS & FINISHING
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Hockey Viz: This Chart is Overall Season
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SAN JOSE SHOT CHARTS & FINISHING
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Hockey Viz
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Frozen Tools
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ZachaFlockaFlame said:
McLeod got caved in that series 5v5

Jack and Timo were the only top 6 forwards who showed up that series on the scoresheet most nights + the McLeod/Bastian/Wood line which got caved but somehow scored the most random goals in that series. That's why it looked like that
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They clearly were comfortable with playoff hockey. Others not so much
 
I don’t really understand Fitz’s roster building philosophy. He’s done a great job at giving out valuable contracts to lock up our core players + built a solid D core, but I dont really agree with his decision to continuously draft defensemen, especially right handed. They’re valuable, but we already have an abundance of them. Maybe they hold value as trade chips long term, but we haven’t been trading them. This team is desperate for some added forward talent and Fitz has really neglected that imo.
 
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ZachaFlockaFlame said:
I also don't agree with the puck battles and other stuff, he's doing everything he can besides score. He shot at 12% last year and scored 28 in a mediocre year for his standards. That alone should tell you this is an aberration and not the norm.
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You must be watching a different Timo Meier. If you want to point at stats, his takeaways are way way down and his giveaways are about the same. He's not as bad as Tatar at losing the puck, but he's probably worse at actually being in position to impact play than just about any forward not named McDermid. His straightline speed is good, but where would you rank him in terms of tracking players down, winning the puck and keeping it in his stick through traffic?

You're right man, for $9m I'd like him to be alot more dangerous than he is. You can find disappointments and fading players Barzal, Laine, at $9m but that tier is Crosby, Kucherov, Point, Rantanan, Stone, Larkin, Reinhart, Tkachuks, Stützle etc etc.

And they all seem to be bringing more than Timo in most phases of the game.
 
Only one of you will see this, but takeaways and giveaways are ultimately meaningless stats because they have enormous home/road biases built in to them.
 
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Wouldn’t be surprised if the boys come out with some fire tomorrow after a pretty bad effort.
 
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Zajacs Bowl Cut said:
Hatakka on waivers, damn...Surprised it wasnt a conditioning stint.

Hopefully no one claims him because the LH depth is....bad.
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Conditioning stint would, I believe, mean that he has to be put back on the roster, which would mean adding his full cap hit back. Not certain that's the case but sure seems like it would be.

If someone claims him, unfortunate, but who's going to claim a player who has missed 2 out of the last 3 seasons?
 
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Triumph said:
Conditioning stint would, I believe, mean that he has to be put back on the roster, which would mean adding his full cap hit back. Not certain that's the case but sure seems like it would be.

If someone claims him, unfortunate, but who's going to claim a player who has missed 2 out of the last 3 seasons?
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Probably someone who wants a good player.
 
Zacha37 said:
I don’t really understand Fitz’s roster building philosophy. He’s done a great job at giving out valuable contracts to lock up our core players + built a solid D core, but I dont really agree with his decision to continuously draft defensemen, especially right handed. They’re valuable, but we already have an abundance of them. Maybe they hold value as trade chips long term, but we haven’t been trading them. This team is desperate for some added forward talent and Fitz has really neglected that imo.
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Not sure what you're seeing, but Fitz has not been drafting RD much at all.

Since Fitz took over, here's his first three rounds:

2020: Holtz, Mercer, Mukh (LD), Daws
2021: L. Hughes (LD), Stillman, Salminen (C)
2022: Nemec (RD), Casey (RD)
2023: Hameenaho
2024: Silayev (LD), Yegorov, Pikkarainen, Traff

That's 7 forwards, 5 defense (3L, 2R), and 2 goalies.

I think what's happening is that:
1) Mercer is the only forward who has worked out so far, with bad misses on Holtz and Stillman.
2) Fitz wasn't able to trade Holtz or Stillman before their value dropped
3) Fitz acquired two RD this off-season, so now we're potentially 5 deep in NHL talent (though, with no RD prospects in Canadian Juniors, NCAA, or Europe)

Real issue to me is that Fitz hasn't had much of a plan for centers. Example, we came into the year without a 4C. Fitz was fine handing that to Lazar - even though Lazar has really been a RW/C combo at best. 3C is similar. Haula is a LW/C combo who has predominantly played C in NJ. Despite this, Fitz has signed zero centers, traded for zero centers, and drafted only one center in the first three rounds.
 
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Timo is pretty bad at carrying the puck. Whether that's bad when compared to the rest of the top-6 or bad in general, it's noticeable enough to me that when I see him with possession I know it's going to be either a shot or a fumble within like a second and prepare myself accordingly.
 
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