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

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Mgd31 said:
What is the point of Jake Evans? How is a guy with 1 goal and 3 points in 22 games going to do anything to our bottom 6?

Sure he is better than Justin Dowling, but who cares.
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Jake Evans is as close to Mikey McLeod replacement as we are going to get.
But like Mikey he can't score. So if we are looking for a 3C to jump start Meier or to have a 3rd scoring line, he isn't the answer.

But if we want a guy that is good defensively, wins faceoffs, penalty kills, can hit. He is a good addition to the team.
 
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Oneiro said:
Talking about the Blackhawks after Toews and Kane while completely ignoring that they drafted Keith, Ladd, etc. way way before those guys got there. Ditto for LA and Dustin Brown, COL with MacKinnon, etc. Ovi came up with a team that had one of the best farm systems in hockey, if not the best.

Take your medicine with this process. You'll be less mad.

And this group is very close. Again, it's the easiest problem to solve.
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Most of the “quick” turnarounds are teams that got their franchise guy at the end of long spell of not being succes. Penguins drafted Fluery and Malkin before Crosby. Chicago went 10 out of 11 seasons of missing the playoffs when they drafted Toews and Kane and had already drafted Keith, Seabrook and other.

The quickest teardown / rebuild is probably the mid-00’s Caps. Playoff team in 2003 and hit the detonate button midway through 2004. Hit the lottery and drafted both Ovechkin and Green in 2004.
 
ZachaFlockaFlame said:
But the issue is that he made those moves to gut the team's depth and now he has to go out and fix it in a garbage market. If he didn't get handsy with this roster, the chances are this team would've been fine right now and would be cruising along with Washington in the Metro side of the playoffs. The defense, he deserves full marks in fixing. I won't deny that, whoever the next GM, is if Fitz is fired, will inherit an embarrassment of riches on the backend.
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I understand what Fitzgerald was trying to do with the Rango-Toffoli trade. However, it’s still perplexing to me that Boqvist was not brought back. It was evident that his game had significantly improved. His speed fit right in as we would swarm teams shift after shift. That 22-23 was so relentless with its puck pressure. I sure do miss it but I digress. He was cheap, had a little bit of scoring pop….a solid bottom six contributor who was also homegrown. That decision bothered me at the time and irks me even more now.
 
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ZachaFlockaFlame said:
Disagree on Silayev, he'll be a good player for this team. Holtz sucked because of Jack developing a shot, I'm tired of people using hindsight with Holtz to the umpteenth degree, he was the right pick at the time. Shakir netted us Meier, so don't see how that was a bad pick. Nemec, sure, but it was reported that he wanted to trade that pick for Matthew Tkachuk. That was also the time Severson was a year away from UFA and we had no clue what his future had in store, taking a RHD prospect was fine as insurance for Severson. We had McLeod/Boqvist/other guys who could've played 3C so taking Wright or Cooley was whatever. Agree on the last point though
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I think Holtz struggled because of Holtz. Not because Jack did or didn’t do anything. Just my view trying to interpret your message which I may have misunderstood
 
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Peter Sidorkiewicz said:
Jake Evans is as close to Mikey McLeod replacement as we are going to get.
But like Mikey he can't score. So if we are looking for a 3C to jump start Meier or to have a 3rd scoring line, he isn't the answer.

But if we want a guy that is good defensively, wins faceoffs, penalty kills. He is a good addition to the team.
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McLeod was also big/fast and physical and could skate into the zone and was a good passer.

If Evans is the same then great, but if not, I am not really interested. I recall McLeod being able to play with Meier pretty nicely.
 
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longislanddevil said:
I understand what Fitzgerald was trying to do with the Rango-Toffoli trade. However, it’s still perplexing to me that Boqvist was not brought back. It was evident that his game had significantly improved. His speed fit right in as we would swarm teams shift after shift. That 22-23 was so relentless with its puck pressure. I sure do miss it but I digress. He was cheap, had a little bit of scoring pop….a solid bottom six contributor who was also homegrown. That decision bothered me at the time and irks me even more now.
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I wonder if Boqvist just didn't want to come back because he wanted to be a top 6 player. We don't know what's said behind closed doors, but it wouldn't surprise me that he wanted out and was setting an unrealistic demand on his RFA contract to force our hand.

Just my conspiracy theory.
 
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Better Call Sal said:
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Looks like Nemec is drawing back in. With such limited ice time against Colorado, Keefe clearly didn’t like what he saw from Casey. Kid’s got to play to learn and improve though. If he’s going to be in the lineup and have such sheltered minutes, try him on the 4th line. Wasn’t too happy about that.

Anyhow….hope to see a bounce back and locked in Nemec if, in fact, he gets the nod against Utah. I’m rooting hard for both these kids.
 
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There’s a pretty fine line to balance between going all in when it might not be our year VS the core is only good for so long so maximizing each year matters.

Just a thought, not really sure I have a true take on it but it will be what informs this deadline maybe more than any other.
 
If Peterka is available then I'd be interested in a Nemec for Peterka swap. Making league Min this season and an RFA in the offseason at only 23. Would provide immediate boost offensively at 5v5 and can be a long term piece with team control and a rising cap.
 
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Nubmer6 said:
I wonder if Boqvist just didn't want to come back because he wanted to be a top 6 player. We don't know what's said behind closed doors, but it wouldn't surprise me that he wanted out and was setting an unrealistic demand on his RFA contract to force our hand.

Just my conspiracy theory.
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He went and signed with a team coming off the best season ever for league min. There’s no shot he thought he was getting more opportunity there. He would’ve went to a shit team if he wanted more opportunity. Fitz is just a dumbass.

longislanddevil said:
I hated that third year at the time we gave it to him and hate it even more now. Didn’t think he would completely fall off a cliff in year two but here we are.
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At the time I remember thinking it either needed to be 2 years if it’s over 3 mil or under 3 mil for 3 years. I also can’t say I saw him falling apart like this in year 2. Hell I doubt I would’ve even expected this bad in year 3
 
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Another thing the probably needs to happen is to stop rolling 4 lines to start a game. Give extra shifts early to the Jack and Nico lines and try to get a lead. It’s risky because if they don’t get a lead and fall behind you are burning them out. However, I think they probably get better opportunities to start a game when a team isn’t sitting back than getting those shift late in the game when the other team is in a defensive posture.

The team needs to get leads.
 
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guitarguyvic said:
There’s nothing wrong with size and grit - it absolutely is a necessary part of a cup formula. But so is speed and transition. You need both - the problem isn’t that he added size and grit, it’s that he did it at the expense of the other things we need. I mean look at a guy like Zetterlund. Young, fast, and big. Not a top six superstar by any stretch, but basically checks all the boxes of what you want in the bottom six. He needed to find a way to make that trade without giving away a piece of the puzzle. And if he couldn’t, then maybe he should not have pulled the trigger. This is where having a vision of what you want your team to look like is important and it’s not always about simply getting the better player just because you can. Maybe if we kept Zetterlund he could have used Timo’s money to get a couple of guys who would be a better fit for the top six now, and we’d have better depth with big but still speedy guys in the bottom six.

Sidebar Disclaimer: I’m not saying Zetterlund is a better player than Timo. I’m sure someone is going to claim that’s what I’m saying anyway.

There’s also the issue of the guys he got that are supposed to be bigger and more physical are only marginally better at that while being much worse at everything else including offensive production.
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We should have sent holtz to San Jose and kept Zetterlund. Would've been the best move there. Timo is good. He just needs to finishing all the chances he has gotten and creates for himself.
 
they may not have wanted holtz because they saw what everyone else eventually came to see, he’s just not good enough. i was a big fan of z, but didn’t anticipate that we should have kept him over mercer at that point when he was riding like a 9 game goal scoring streak
 
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Why do people say we should have sent Holtz to San Jose? As if Fitz didn’t try and Grier (who was with us for a while) didn’t want him, you need the other team to actually say yes
 
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