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

[Bleedred]

Wouldn’t be surprised if the boys come out with some fire tomorrow after a pretty bad effort.

The boos already came out with A LOT of fire last night after the pretty bad effort!

Dammit! You edited it right when I quoted this lol. I knew what you meant all along, I just wanted to play along. But I definitely read it as boos at first, but knew it was a simple typo for boys.

 

[JK3]

You don't need to go through waivers for a conditioning stint, you can loan a player to the AHL club for two weeks. I have no idea what they're doing.

 

[Devs3cups]

Maybe the Siegs injury isn’t as bad as we thought?

 

[TheBeerNerd]

I see what happened lol, spelling mistake on my part, I meant to write “boys”.

Hey, it happens! But I'm still going to disagree. They are clearly rattled mentally. There is a bad vibe around the team not dissimilar to last season... but at least last season they were capable of stringing together goals to get back in it.

 

[Barry Tallackson]

Maybe the Siegs injury isn’t as bad as we thought?

only possible reason that makes sense, otherwise Fitz is as dumb as he looks

 

[Zippy316]

You don't need to go through waivers for a conditioning stint, you can loan a player to the AHL club for two weeks. I have no idea what they're doing.

I would bet they don’t want to lose him and are taking a calculated risk that no one is going to want to claim him to sit on their roster for the next two weeks.

If they send him down for a conditioning stint, teams may scout him and then look to claim him when he goes on waivers in the future.

Might also be to get rid of the SOIR cap hit he has too. I believe they would have to active him and then assign him on a conditioning stint so I wonder if that’ll cut into the cap accrual during the 4 Nations Break.

 

[longislanddevil]

It is certainly perplexing that Fitz would risk losing Hatakka, especially with the Siegs injury. Unless the injury is no where near as serious as speculated, I just don’t understand this. Is there another LD in the organization that Fitz and staff are bullish on? This roster is a mess right now.

 

[Triumph]

You don't need to go through waivers for a conditioning stint, you can loan a player to the AHL club for two weeks. I have no idea what they're doing.

There are two provisions for loaning a player to the minor leagues without waivers for a player who would otherwise require them -

A Conditioning Loan, which simply does not apply here - that can only be given to players who are on the roster, and Hatakka is not on the roster. They could add him to the roster, but why would they do that?

A Bona Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception To The Upper Limit Conditioning Loan - this is for players who are presently on LTIR to test their fitness to return to play - it does not apply to Hatakka, as he was never on LTIR.

So there's no mechanism for giving him a conditioning stint - he's not on the roster, and he's not on LTIR. I think the Season Opening Injured Reserve is explicitly designed so that a player who is not immediately added to the roster will go on waivers when he is able to play.

 

[NjDevsRR]

#FreeSanteri
@Cheddabombs

 

[Zacha37]

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.

I’m probably thinking of things improperly because of the lack of forward depth we have. I like Nemec as a player and think he’ll work out of whatever he’s going through, but I think Shane Wright should’ve been the choice at that spot, both in 2022 and today. Especially since they ended up taking Casey in the 2nd round. Just no room for that many “offensive” minded defensemen especially with Dougie being locked up for a while.

 

[Cheddabombs]

#FreeSanteri
@Cheddabombs

 

[HBK27]

Don't like this move one bit and will be rather pissed if Hatakka gets claimed.

 

[tailfins]

I’m probably thinking of things improperly because of the lack of forward depth we have. I like Nemec as a player and think he’ll work out of whatever he’s going through, but I think Shane Wright should’ve been the choice at that spot, both in 2022 and today. Especially since they ended up taking Casey in the 2nd round. Just no room for that many “offensive” minded defensemen especially with Dougie being locked up for a while.

At that time, we had zero RD prospects, and our NHL / AHL depth looked like Dougie, Severson, Subban, and Walsh. Hockey-reference claims that Christian Jaros played 11 games for the Devils that year. I have no memory of that player. Subban was about to retire. Severson was a year from UFA. Walsh was not NHL caliber. RD was a gaping hole.

Meanwhile, we had Nico, Jack, McLeod, and Boqvist at center. We also had Zacha, Sharangovich, and Mercer who could play center / wing. We've lost four of those seven, and Mercer seems to have settled at wing. Meanwhile, we've only added Haula and Lazar - who are center / wing types, not pure centers.

Which is all to say, things change fast. I don't know that I favor drafting for need, but it feels like having some diversification in your drafting is useful. Drafting only one center in the first three rounds in five years (and across 14 picks) seems unreasonable.

 

[tailfins]

Don't like this move one bit and will be rather pissed if Hatakka gets claimed.

You don't need to go through waivers for a conditioning stint, you can loan a player to the AHL club for two weeks. I have no idea what they're doing.

Maybe the Siegs injury isn’t as bad as we thought?

only possible reason that makes sense, otherwise Fitz is as dumb as he looks

It is certainly perplexing that Fitz would risk losing Hatakka, especially with the Siegs injury. Unless the injury is no where near as serious as speculated, I just don’t understand this. Is there another LD in the organization that Fitz and staff are bullish on? This roster is a mess right now.

#FreeSanteri
@Cheddabombs

I think @Triumph already explained this. Hatakka would need to be activated and added to the NHL roster to be sent on a conditioning assignment. While on a conditioning assignment, he would continue to take a roster spot and would eat up cap space. The Devils don't want that.

There's definitely a risk that he'll get claimed, but I think it's very low. He's a 24 year old 6th round pick who has played a total of 21 NHL games in his career.

Then again , I thought Kaliyev would make it through waivers. Still, look what happened with Kaliyev - he's been a healthy scratch ever since the Rangers acquired JT Miller. Maybe some bottom feeding team with injuries on the blue line and no NHL ready prospects wants to give Hatakka a shot.

If Hatakka gets claimed, though, it's more of a blow to Utica than it is to NJ. NJ still has Vilen, Misyul in Utica, Silayev, Orlov and Karpovich in the KHL, Edwards in the NCAA. Hatakka is likely passed by one of them in the next two years.

 

[HBK27]

I think @Triumph already explained this. Hatakka would need to be activated and added to the NHL roster to be sent on a conditioning assignment. While on a conditioning assignment, he would continue to take a roster spot and would eat up cap space. The Devils don't want that.

There's definitely a risk that he'll get claimed, but I think it's very low. He's a 24 year old 6th round pick who has played a total of 21 NHL games in his career.

Then again , I thought Kaliyev would make it through waivers. Still, look what happened with Kaliyev - he's been a healthy scratch ever since the Rangers acquired JT Miller. Maybe some bottom feeding team with injuries on the blue line and no NHL ready prospects wants to give Hatakka a shot.

If Hatakka gets claimed, though, it's more of a blow to Utica than it is to NJ. NJ still has Vilen, Misyul in Utica, Silayev, Orlov and Karpovich in the KHL, Edwards in the NCAA. Hatakka is likely passed by one of them in the next two years.

Decent enough rationale I guess, particularly since NJ is trying to milk as much cap space as possible approaching the trade deadline.

Would still suck to lose him via waivers and then see the team trade for LD depth at the deadline. Currently, I trust Hatakka a hell of a lot more than Misyul or White, but guess Fitz doesn't see as much of a gap there to justify the extra cap hit.

 

[Zippy316]

At that time, we had zero RD prospects, and our NHL / AHL depth looked like Dougie, Severson, Subban, and Walsh. Hockey-reference claims that Christian Jaros played 11 games for the Devils that year. I have no memory of that player. Subban was about to retire. Severson was a year from UFA. Walsh was not NHL caliber. RD was a gaping hole.

Meanwhile, we had Nico, Jack, McLeod, and Boqvist at center. We also had Zacha, Sharangovich, and Mercer who could play center / wing. We've lost four of those seven, and Mercer seems to have settled at wing. Meanwhile, we've only added Haula and Lazar - who are center / wing types, not pure centers.

Which is all to say, things change fast. I don't know that I favor drafting for need, but it feels like having some diversification in your drafting is useful. Drafting only one center in the first three rounds in five years (and across 14 picks) seems unreasonable.

Well said.

Fitzgerald’s only real attempt to add to address center this offseason was hoping Cotter could play C. I don’t think he even added a center for Utica this off-season either.

The lack of drafting can be excused given our young talent at the position during that time, but not adding any centers of substance in the last calendar year is frankly inexcusable.

 

[Triumph]

Hatakka probably isn't even here next season if he goes unclaimed, he just can't stay healthy. If he could stay healthy he'd be a solid 4th LHD to have, but he can't seem to.

Decent enough rationale I guess, particularly since NJ is trying to milk as much cap space as possible approaching the trade deadline.

Would still suck to lose him via waivers and then see the team trade for LD depth at the deadline. Currently, I trust Hatakka a hell of a lot more than Misyul or White, but guess Fitz doesn't see as much of a gap there to justify the extra cap hit.

I think they should end up trading for LHD depth at the deadline anyway, who says Hatakka is healthy in 2 months? If Siegenthaler's out the rest of the regular season it's a perfect opportunity to get a decent option in there.