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

[Lou Bloom]

A forward group that had no reason to being tweaked as hard as he did post 2023? Yes, he deserves absurd amounts of blame for that. And now he has to go back in the trade market or UFA to fix it again when there was no need besides figuring out what to do with the 4C post McLeod Team Canada thing. And the poor drafting plays into ELC's not being readily available up front so he had even more reason to dip into UFA for plugs/grinders. Stillman over Stankoven is one example I thought of within 2 mins of this post, I'm sure there's others in various drafts under his regime that have been equally bad.

The only major tweak he made was bringing in Toffoli for Sharangovich who was a healthy scratch for the majority of the playoffs and due for a raise as an RFA and not re-signing Miles Wood and Tatar (both of whom weren't worth their respective contracts anyway). Toffoli ended up being a bad fit and he traded him.

The big reason why the forward depth crated is because:
1. McLeod situation
2. Mercer turning from solid player to barely making an impact.
3. Having faith in Holtz to break onto the team as a high draft pick.
4. Haula declining.

And mix those situations with not having any good forward prospects to supplement ended up cratering the forward depth on the roster. It wasn't about making making major changes post 2023, If Mercer and Holtz progressed like he hoped (and how many on this forum wanted him to give the young players a chance) and the McLeod situation didn't occur then the forward depth concern wouldn't even be an issue.

I think the lack of forward talent being drafted under him and the inability to find steals in UFA/trade market forward wise is a valid criticism. But completely ignoring the fact that he completely overhauled the defense and goaltending in one offseason while also building up the future depth in both with Silayev and Yegorov in favor of just constantly complaining about the lack of forward depth in an over the top way is just ridiculous.

He completely fixed the defense and goaltending in one offseason, can we at least give him the next trade deadline and offseason to try and fix the forward depth before we start with the over the top complaints.

 

[Lou Bloom]

The bottom line is that this team is not that well constructed. Most of our forwards have little to no chemistry with each other, Bratt and Jack notwithstanding. You see this in their lack of clean passes regularly. We have zero snipers on the team, you see evidence of this regularly as well with their shot selection and wild fluctuations with finishing. The guys we have who have some snarl or grit pretty much suck at everything else. We are generally no longer a fast team. The defense is pretty good in their own end but there’s only one and a half guys who can transition well and contribute offensively regularly. The goaltending has been fine but it’s certainly not solved long term and could go off the deep end at any moment given their ages.

It’s not clear to me what kind of team Fitz is trying to build. It’s a less severe strain of Shero syndrome.

The problem with the forwards was due to Mercer and Holtz failing to live up to expectations, McLeod situation, Palat and Haula both being bad contracts and poor forward drafting. It has little to do with chemistry and much more to do with a lack of talent outside of Bratt, Hughes, Hischier and Meier.

How many teams in the NHL have players like Hughes and Hamilton to bring offense from the backend. The unit has been one of the top ones in the NHL this season and still have Casey, Nemec and Silayev as prospects/depth.

How many teams have a better goaltending situation right now? a year and half of Markstrom at $4.125M with Yegorov a recent 2nd round pick looking very good at Boston is a better situation than the majority of NHL teams are in right now.

The forward depth is a very fair criticism but you would think with how well Fitz did reworking the defense and goaltending over the past year that he'd at least get a little leeway in trying to fix this situation before everyone started to freak out.

 

[theoptimist]

Good morning. Thank you Fitz.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

So depressing that we are being treated to yet another season where it appears expectations will not be met.

WE DESERVE THIS!!!

what if they beat a Carolina team playing similar hockey to them in the first round? would we DESERVE this then?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Blake Coleman is another example. Would be the exact type of player we need right now. He trades him away befause we won’t be signing him because we don’t want to give big contracts to a player like that…only to turn around and pay similar amount to an older, worse version in Palat. What was the point of trading him? Where’s the vision in that kind of move? I don’t see it.

are you seriously questioning why they traded a ~29 year old middle 6 winger at the peak of his value that needed a fat new contract for big assets?

you guys love playing revisionist history on here. Really weird stuff.

 

[Billdo]

Lumbus is only four back now. Yikes.

 

[Triumph]

Blake Coleman is another example. Would be the exact type of player we need right now. He trades him away befause we won’t be signing him because we don’t want to give big contracts to a player like that…only to turn around and pay similar amount to an older, worse version in Palat. What was the point of trading him? Where’s the vision in that kind of move? I don’t see it.

This is asinine. He traded Coleman at the absolute peak of his value and Mukhamadullin was probably the most valuable thing dealt in the Meier trade. He traded Coleman 2 full years before he signed Palat, and Palat is an entirely different player! Coleman is a 3rd liner who makes offense by himself, Palat is a guy who has traditionally played with creative offensive players and has been the 3rd best player on his own line. The way that you know this is that Palat and Coleman played on the same team for 2 years together - Palat's linemates were Point, Cirelli, Kucherov, Stamkos while Coleman's were Goodrow, Gourde, and Johnson.

So who lacks vision in this case?

Addendum that HF stuck to my original post:

One thing kinda funny about all the complainers and nostalgia lovers on here is that I no longer hear all this pining for Adam Henrique, remember when he was going to solve the 3rd line C problem? Remember when he was the one who got away and he was going to return home triumphantly?

 

[britdevil]

One thing kinda funny about all the complainers and nostalgia lovers on here is that I no longer hear all this pining for Adam Henrique, remember when he was going to solve the 3rd line C problem? Remember when he was the one who got away and he was going to return home triumphantly?

They're doing the same shit with Palmieri, a guy we should stay well clear of.

 

[guitarguyvic]

WE DESERVE THIS!!!

what if they beat a Carolina team playing similar hockey to them in the first round? would we DESERVE this then?

What if we never had to be treated to your constant strawmanning? Now there’s something we DESERVE!!!

WEIRD stuff.

 

[guitarguyvic]

This is asinine. He traded Coleman at the absolute peak of his value and Mukhamadullin was probably the most valuable thing dealt in the Meier trade. He traded Coleman 2 full years before he signed Palat, and Palat is an entirely different player! Coleman is a 3rd liner who makes offense by himself, Palat is a guy who has traditionally played with creative offensive players and has been the 3rd best player on his own line. The way that you know this is that Palat and Coleman played on the same team for 2 years together - Palat's linemates were Point, Cirelli, Kucherov, Stamkos while Coleman's were Goodrow, Gourde, and Johnson.

So who lacks vision in this case?

Addendum that HF stuck to my original post:

One thing kinda funny about all the complainers and nostalgia lovers on here is that I no longer hear all this pining for Adam Henrique, remember when he was going to solve the 3rd line C problem? Remember when he was the one who got away and he was going to return home triumphantly?

Why would we be pining for someone who is now closer to 40 rather than 30? I’m not sure what your point here is?

You don’t see an inherent contradiction in trading away players at their peak to get maximum because you want to avoid handing out bloated contracts that won’t hold their value down the line…and then signing veteran FA to bloated contracts that won’t hold their value down the line?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Why would we be pining for someone who is now closer to 40 rather than 30? I’m not sure what your point here is?

You don’t see an inherent contradiction in trading away players at their peak to get maximum because you want to avoid handing out bloated contracts that won’t hold their value down the line…and then signing veteran FA to bloated contracts that won’t hold their value down the line?

Blake Coleman was traded in early 2020 for REALLY good assets.

Ondrej Palat was signed in mid 2022, for nothing but $$.

yes, 2.5 years in sports is an ETERNITY. The Devils weren't ready to compete in 2020. They were in 2022. Is this the first time you've followed sports in your life?

 

[Triumph]

Why would we be pining for someone who is now closer to 40 rather than 30? I’m not sure what your point here is?

My point is that you can search on this board all throughout the beginning of 2024 and into free agency and a large contingent of this board wanted Adam Henrique. He re-signed with Edmonton on July 1, I forget if he actually made it to free agency or not.

You don’t see an inherent contradiction in trading away players at their peak to get maximum because you want to avoid handing out bloated contracts that won’t hold their value down the line…and then signing veteran FA to bloated contracts that won’t hold their value down the line?

You've nicely sidestepped the fact that you thought Palat and Coleman are similar players when they absolutely are not, but he traded Coleman because he had a lot of value and he needed young players, not because he wanted to avoid handing out a bloated contract - it's you who has made that assumption. Who says Coleman would've wanted to sign with the Devils in 2 years?

Short of getting an enormous surplus of draft picks or an incredible haul draft-wise, teams have to sign UFAs. Most multi-year UFA contracts are bad, but ideally they are done to fill holes that can't otherwise be filled. I see no contradiction here, it'd be nice if the Devils had the players or assets for a guy like Palat, but they didn't.

 

[Camille the Eel]

Lumbus is only four back now. Yikes.

Yeah Columbus is surprising and they continue to score a lot of goals despite some key injuries.

But I love that we control our fate in this race right now. We are where you want to be as the pack turns for home in this race. We either win our games or we don’t. It’s up to us and we need no one’s help. The playoffs start now in my eyes. Who are we as a team? We are about to find out. The games become more meaningful now day by day. So there’s no “yikes” in my eyes, this should be fun whichever way it goes down.

p.s. I know you didn’t mean “yikes” that way, I get the rhetorical emoji too.

 

[Bleedred]

It’s looking like it’s already gonna be a nail biter race to the end, much like it was with Florida in the 2017-2018 season where we made it by one point.

And it might not even be Columbus we’re battling with, as they’re already in a playoff spot. It could be one of the teams who are currently just outside a playoff spot. And in that case Columbus probably passes us for 3rd in the division and we’re battling for the wild card.

There’s 22 games left, which is exactly the number of games we’ve played since Christmas. We’ve gone 8-11-3 since then and that was playing weaker competition than what’s remaining. 8-11-3 from here gets us 89 points and probably not enough for the playoffs. But 92 points should be enough. Maybe even 90 will be enough.

So essentially we’ve won 7 games in our last 21, since we won the first game back from Christmas. We’ve won 2 in a row once.

 

[Call Me Al]

fitz made some good moves for sure. but he’s had 5 years with a wealth of elite young assets and hasn’t built a winner. there are way too many flaws on this team right now.

reality is if the trend of the last month continues they will be on the outside of the playoffs in two weeks, and there’s no real indication that it’s going to change other than whatever happens at the trade deadline, or somehow they click and go back to playing how they played at the beginning of the season.

if they play a game or a handful of games and the stats say they should be scoring more than they are, you can attribute that to luck. when the streak extends 6 weeks and 20 games it’s not bad luck, it’s a flawed team. they squandered the easiest part of their schedule and they could easily miss the playoffs again.

it’s a joke that some people here are watching them drop in the standings and trying to tell everyone there’s nothing to worry about, that the actual problem is the people complaining.

sorry for the vent but this team f***ing sucks to watch 60% of the time, then once in a while they put up a 5 spot on some shit team and everyone thinks they’re good again.

columbus is on a 3 game winning streak, we haven’t done that since december. they just might not be good enough

 

[Better Call Sal]

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

fitz made some good moves for sure. but he’s had 5 years with a wealth of elite young assets and hasn’t built a winner. there are way too many flaws on this team right now.

reality is if the trend of the last month continues they will be on the outside of the playoffs in two weeks, and there’s no real indication that it’s going to change other than whatever happens at the trade deadline, or somehow they click and go back to playing how they played at the beginning of the season.

if they play a game or a handful of games and the stats say they should be scoring more than they are, you can attribute that to luck. when the streak extends 6 weeks and 20 games it’s not bad luck, it’s a flawed team. they squandered the easiest part of their schedule and they could easily miss the playoffs again.

it’s a joke that some people here are watching them drop in the standings and trying to tell everyone there’s nothing to worry about, that the actual problem is the people complaining.

sorry for the vent but this team f***ing sucks to watch 60% of the time, then once in a while they put up a 5 spot on some shit team and everyone thinks they’re good again.

columbus is on a 3 game winning streak, we haven’t done that since december. they just might not be good enough

Do you guys realize that the Wild card exists? They are not going to be outside the playoffs in 2 weeks. They are 8 points up on the bubble right now. And all the teams hovering AT the bubble either suck major ass or admitted they will sell.

Columbus also recently lost 4 games in a row.

 

[Mgd31]

Can he play 3C?

 

[Call Me Al]

Do you guys realize that the Wild card exists? They are not going to be outside the playoffs in 2 weeks. They are 8 points up on the bubble right now. And all the teams hovering AT the bubble either suck major ass or admitted they will sell.

Columbus also recently lost 4 games in a row.

hate to break it to you man, we suck just as much. compare their winning percentage over the last 6 weeks to ours..

rangers and ottawa eachhave 2 games in hand, that 8 points is misleading/disingenuous. they also don’t have to play vegas, dallas and winnipeg in their next 4

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

hate to break it to you man, we suck just as much. compare their winning percentage over the last 6 weeks to ours..

Since January 15th (love 2 pick arbitrary dates!)

NJ is at .464 point %
BOS is at (you guessed it) .464 point %
OTT is at .500 point %
NYR is at .633 but also just lost arguably their best player.

so yeah, they may have similar point %, but that doesn't imply they will be out of the playoffs COMPLETELY within 2 weeks. Lets and keep the discussion rational here, at least just a little bit. If you wanna scream into the void, take that to twitter.

I dont really care about games in hand or "strength of schedule". You guys always assume every team ever will win every game in hand and that is not how hockey works.

 

[Call Me Al]

i think it’s perfectly rational to think that if the devils lose 3 or 4 against top tier teams, the rangers could make up the 4 game difference over the next couple of weeks.

you want to harp on 2 weeks? great maybe not. but there’s 20 games left and a 464 winning percentage isn’t going to get it done i can guarantee that

like seriously we’re talking about making the playoffs you want to take one small point of my rant to try and disprove the whole thing, the point is the same

 

[theoptimist]

It’s looking like it’s already gonna be a nail biter race to the end, much like it was with Florida in the 2017-2018 season where we made it by one point.

And it might not even be Columbus we’re battling with, as they’re already in a playoff spot. It could be one of the teams who are currently just outside a playoff spot. And in that case Columbus probably passes us for 3rd in the division and we’re battling for the wild card.

There’s 22 games left, which is exactly the number of games we’ve played since Christmas. We’ve gone 8-11-3 since then and that was playing weaker competition than what’s remaining. 8-11-3 from here gets us 89 points and probably not enough for the playoffs. But 92 points should be enough. Maybe even 90 will be enough.

So essentially we’ve won 7 games in our last 21, since we won the first game back from Christmas. We’ve won 2 in a row once.

C'mon Bleed. If they continue to drive play the way they've been doing for that last 21 games, they'll be fine! What does the Deserve O Meter say? C'mon Bleed, we're still dealing with norovirus and injuries. But when they come back! We'll be fine!

MM was a replacement level player! We have Lazar in his role, we'll be fine!

As you can see, I'm thoroughly enjoying this moment right now, because it feels good knowing I was right all along about MM being a core player and our shadow 1C. Fitz never replaced him (an obvious mistake), and instead, went with Brett Pesce. Okay Tom, to each their own.

Say we get Evans. That's a 2nd round pick, maybe more, plus the MM deal,$4-5M/5 years for MM's replacement. Should have addressed 3C in the summer when it could have been just about money (Stephenson/Lindholm). I don't even want to discuss what Stephenson would have meant to this lineup. People taking his current stats w/ Kraken and extrapolating to how he may have performed on the current Devils team need to be more disciplined with their statistical analysis.

 

[None Shall Pass]

32 Thoughts: What will Jets, Capitals do at NHL trade deadline?

One week out from the trade deadline, Elliotte Friedman writes about what he's hearing around the league, plus some takeaways from the 4 Nations Face-Off.

www.sportsnet.ca

10. The one team everyone believes will absolutely 100-per-cent trade for a centre? New Jersey.

Phew

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

I'm assuming probably giving him the extra day, have Allen/Daws go Sat and Marky go Sun?

 

[RSeen]

32 Thoughts: What will Jets, Capitals do at NHL trade deadline?

One week out from the trade deadline, Elliotte Friedman writes about what he's hearing around the league, plus some takeaways from the 4 Nations Face-Off.

www.sportsnet.ca

Phew

Seems like Evans is most likely but I also wouldn't mind someone like Laughton, who has an additional year on his deal.

Though Evans is nearly half the cap hit, which will likely be important.