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

[Nocashstyle]

The Markstrom situation is interesting. Personally, I don't think the trade was worth it, but Fitz definitely couldn't take any more risks with the goalie situation. Putting Markstrom acquisition as the reason they're succeeding is an odd take

The trade was 100% “worth it” in the sense that they didn’t give up much and Markstrom is bringing exactly what he was brought in for. It’s clearly a very short term fix, unfortunately, but I don’t really care at all about a late 1st and Kevin Bahl if the Devils are a playoff team and potential contender for these two years Markstrom is here.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

The Markstrom situation is interesting. Personally, I don't think the trade was worth it, but Fitz definitely couldn't take any more risks with the goalie situation. Putting Markstrom acquisition as the reason they're succeeding is an odd take

it isn't the only reason, but it certainly is way up the list.

I am not sure how anyone could question the trade given what Markstrom has done the last 2 months.

 

[Better Call Sal]

The trade was 100% “worth it” in the sense that they didn’t give up much and Markstrom is bringing exactly what he was brought in for. It’s clearly a very short term fix, unfortunately, but I don’t really care at all about a late 1st and Kevin Bahl if the Devils are a playoff team and potential contender for these two years Markstrom is here.

Fully agree here. To give him his just due at least, Bahl seems to be doing well for himself out in Calgary this year. He's jumped to 21:30 ATOI this year and playing with their best defenseman, Rasmus Andersson so it seems he's logging the heaviest minutes possible out there and coming out pretty close to even.

It would not have shocked me to see Bahl bounce back under a more structured defensive system such as Keefe's. But I don't hesitate in making this trade again and again. Markstrom is doing everything that we haven't gotten here for years, making the saves he should and even the ones he shouldn't.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Fully agree here. To give him his just due at least, Bahl seems to be doing well for himself out in Calgary this year. He's jumped to 21:30 ATOI this year and playing with their best defenseman, Rasmus Andersson so it seems he's logging the heaviest minutes possible out there and coming out pretty close to even.

It would not have shocked me to see Bahl bounce back under a more structured defensive system such as Keefe's. But I don't hesitate in making this trade again and again. Markstrom is doing everything that we haven't gotten here for years, making the saves he should and even the ones he shouldn't.

meh, not to pile on the guy, but Bahl has the worst CF%, 2nd worst xG%, and 2nd worst HDCF% of all the Flames regular DMen.

He is basically looking like the same guy he was here.

 

[Better Call Sal]

meh, not to pile on the guy, but Bahl has the worst CF%, 2nd worst xG%, and 2nd worst HDCF% of all the Flames regular DMen.

He is basically looking like the same guy he was here.

Fair enough. I think I misread the CF at being just at 5 on 5 as opposed to all situations, and fully expect he's largely starting in the defensive zone and rarely getting offensive zone shifts so when I saw it was around 48-49%, I figured that wasn't far off from what I anticipated.

Certainly not saying he was a real loss of any kind, but I would've been curious to see if he would have developed better habits in a better defensive system. He was so far in over his head by the end of last season, it was tough to watch.

 

[MasterofGrond]

it isn't the only reason, but it certainly is way up the list.

I am not sure how anyone could question the trade given what Markstrom has done the last 2 months.

Yeah Markstrom has been basically as good as Shesterkin in gsaa measures, but also had a lot less opportunity to earn that with how good the devils defense has been.

If you told me this is what we'd be getting, I would have had zero reservations about the deal when it was made. Just hope he keeps it up.

 

[JK3]

I'll get the GDT soon, just waiting on lineups.

 

[theoptimist]

I woke up to the Buffalo Theory?

 

[Mr Bojanglez]

I woke up to the Buffalo Theory?

They are an ambient post-rock band from the midwest.

 

[Clam Jensen]

I’ll be honest I wanted no part of Markstrom when his name was thrown around last season due to age and how erratic his results could be at times, but I will happily eat crow.

 

[Devils731]

Not ideal. Hopefully it’s the the bug going around and not anything nagging.

 

[TheBeerNerd]

The flu's been going around a bunch of teams lately.

 

[billingtons ghost]

xG gives you an insight into trends. Why are the playoff teams normally in the top 20 in xG? And why are the non playoff teams normally the worst in xG?

Theres a middle ground where you can use analytics and also common sense.

Because it's a weak generalized characterization of complex gameplay. It definitely says something about about something, in the symbiotic relationship between goalie play and team defense but the analysis people draw and the takeaways are ridiculous.

I guarantee you that there is no way Markstrom is on any highlight reel for his barrel rolls and stick saves and glove thievery if he isn't completely brimming with confidence after playing behind a team defense that allows 12 shots on goal and gift wraps him player of the month honors.

It should be obvious that if he doesn't get lucky with the stick in Seattle, if opponents lifted their shots and he doesn't get those sprawling glove saves, and all of those many posts they've got behind him don't bounce right we would be talking about the few that went right through him in the past few games on this losing streak. Like shooting luck there's goalie luck.

I've been cast as a goalie apologist, but I'm just saying: Allen hasn't been as bad as people think, and Markstrom hasn't been as good as people think, but he's exactly what this team needed and needs as a reward for playing much improved defense. He's our first elite goalie in 12 years.

 

[Devs3cups]

Yeah, that sucks. I don’t like our chances if we don’t have a full healthy lineup against the Panthers. Might be one of those.

 

[Bleedred]

Yeah, that sucks. I don’t like our chances if we don’t have a full healthy lineup against the Panthers. Might be one of those.

I think we can win against Spencer Knight with a (slightly) handicapped lineup.

I’m not sure we can win with a mostly healthy lineup in front of Jake Allen.

But he’s not gonna lose every game the rest of the season either.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Yeah, that sucks. I don’t like our chances if we don’t have a full healthy lineup against the Panthers. Might be one of those.

Panthers played last night so hopefully they have one less gear tonight

On the flip side, Panthers suffered a late loss, so they will be flying in the first period. Gotta weather the first period and then take the second and third.




In other news:
To our mods, how can we get HF to add the Dano shocked face to replace one of the current emoji reactions lmao. Its definitely better than that little girl or Jokinen.

 

[Devils731]

Panthers played last night but more importantly this is their 3rd game in 4 nights; imo, those are the true killers by schedule.

Panthers also took 6 penalties last night, so they’ll be relieved to only take 1 tonight.

 

[Saugus]

it isn't the only reason, but it certainly is way up the list.

I am not sure how anyone could question the trade given what Markstrom has done the last 2 months.

And if Markstrom has a rough stretch and sucks for a bit, the opinions will vacillate right back that it was a terrible trade for a busted down goalie. We have recency bias bad on this board.

To me, what matters most is what he does at the end of the season and in the playoffs. If he provides competent goaltending for the length of our run, and we can’t single him out as the reason for a series loss, I’m happy.

If he gets hot at the right time and steals a series, I’m ecstatic.

 

[NjDevsRR]

We have recency bias bad on this board.

It drives me nuts. This team is 5th in points and 6th in goal differential and I have seen multiple posters allude to being a possible lottery team due to the last stretch.

Bonkers

Edit:

And they are even crazier when you see the entire Conference having a similar stretch besides Det, Cbj and Mtl who aren’t going to sustain that for too much longer

 

[AfroThunder396]

The Markstrom situation is interesting. Personally, I don't think the trade was worth it, but Fitz definitely couldn't take any more risks with the goalie situation. Putting Markstrom acquisition as the reason they're succeeding is an odd take

I think we definitely could have given up less and gotten a slightly cheaper goaltender to put up similar results. But I don't blame Fitz at all for deciding not to f*** around and pay more for a good one.

I have to say I'm a little shocked at the responses to the CJ tweet. He's not wrong. We had the worst goaltending in the league for years and as soon as that gets addressed the team turns around. Not a coincidence. We saw a smaller scale version of this in 2022-23 where the team had good underlyings but lost games due to goaltending, then we brought in Vitek who played well for a year, and in that one year he was giving us saves we won a ton of games. Same thing happened this offseason, but this time it's the guy that got fired by Toronto and the waivers dude from Montreal fixed everything?

Goaltending was the biggest negative last year and this season it's been a positive for us. That's the biggest delta between last year and this year. The defense wasn't great last year but it looked worse than it was because every unscreened cupcake shot from the point went in. We really won't see the effects of Keefe's structure until the playoffs.

 

[Devils731]

Goaltending was the biggest negative last year and this season it's been a positive for us. That's the biggest delta between last year and this year. The defense wasn't great last year but it looked worse than it was because every unscreened cupcake shot from the point went in.

On the counter-side, opponents shots went in at a high rate because they had tons of time and space, which appears likely to cause an increase in shooting percentage but isn’t captured in public models. The defense was horrific last year but it modeled better than reality so there isn’t a number you can point at to show it.

The defense being competent most of the time is a huge help to the goalie and staying composed. If you’re a goalie and can’t trust your defense to do anything, you’re going to stop playing your game well as you’re feeling under pressure and alone.

 

[My3Sons]

It drives me nuts. This team is 5th in points and 6th in goal differential and I have seen multiple posters allude to being a possible lottery team due to the last stretch.

Bonkers

Edit:

And they are even crazier when you see the entire Conference having a similar stretch besides Det, Cbj and Mtl who aren’t going to sustain that for too much longer

View attachment 960723

It's a long season. There will be some ups and downs but to be fair, after that stretch where they gave up less than 20 shots per game for however many and made it look easy, that road trip made them look like something was amiss. Not lottery amiss but they didn't look to be playing as well to me. Some folks can't see past that to the inevitable rebound.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Finally got to watch the Lightning gm in full from Saturday. Utterly shocked by the amount of people who thought they struggled. Devils straight up dominated 70% of that game until they got fatigued.

The fatigue is obviously an issue due to the post holiday travel and possible virus that’s currently going through the room.

They 100% deserved that win. Hell, both Lightning goals were very fortunate and were not based on zone pressure.

This team gets way too much hate. Let them cook @Devs3cups

 

[MasterofGrond]

Finally got to watch the Lightning gm in full from Saturday. Utterly shocked by the amount of people who thought they struggled. Devils straight up dominated 70% of that game until they got fatigued.

The fatigue is obviously an issue due to the post holiday travel and possible virus that’s currently going through the room.

They 100% deserved that win. Hell, both Lightning goals were very fortunate and were not based on zone pressure.

This team gets way too much hate. Let them cook @Devs3cups

you know the devils played well because all 50 posts in the lightning GDT are salty as f*** "devils won't win in the playoffs" etc etc etc

 

[Emperoreddy]

Panthers played last night so hopefully they have one less gear tonight

On the flip side, Panthers suffered a late loss, so they will be flying in the first period. Gotta weather the first period and then take the second and third.




In other news:
To our mods, how can we get HF to add the Dano shocked face to replace one of the current emoji reactions lmao. Its definitely better than that little girl or Jokinen.

Give me the one you want to use and I'll ask