Singing offensive praises for anyone on a team that scored 11 goals in 5 games is wild to me.Courtesy of Todd Cordell (Infernal Access) :
The New Jersey Devils won’t play another meaningful hockey game for more than five months and there is a long runway to prepare for the draft, free agency, and the like.
Thus, I’m going to look (slightly) back and share some takeaways from the shot contributions data I tracked in the opening round.
Keep in mind that these numbers only factor in 5v5 play.
Forwards
New Jersey’s star wingers certainly showed up for the series. Jesper Bratt skated on a line with Dawson Mercer and Erik Haula – the lesser set of top-6 linemates – and was tasked with playing the Jack Hughes role, doing all the heavy lifting through the neutral zone while facilitating everything in the final third. Clearly, he did a great job.
Bratt was directly responsible for the creation of more shot attempts than anybody on the roster and helped Dawson Mercer and Erik Haula elevate their games to a level we haven’t seen all year long.
I mean, Mercer went from 4-4.5 shot contributions per game over the last two regular seasons to nearly seven. He worked his ass off – and deserves credit for his improved play – but it’s safe to say Bratt had a healthy hand in that.
I mean, look at those shot assist numbers. Ondrej Palat was the only player in the same universe as Bratt and he spent a lot of his time playing with the team’s leading goal scorer in the playoffs and the team’s leading shot generator.
Sticking with the latter, Meier definitely played his part in this series. He generated a ton of shot volume and a lot of it came from high-danger areas.
He took plenty of heat for squandering chances over the first couple of games but it says a lot he led the entire series – I’m talking sole possession – in 5v5 points and all the talk is about how he didn’t do enough.
Would it have been nice for him to tuck in a couple more goals? You bet! But, overall, he showed up, he produced, and he was one of the main reasons most of the games were competitive.
Cody Glass and Paul Cotter didn’t fare half bad in terms of volume. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of quality. That line struggled to get to the middle of the ice and cause havoc around the net.
Stefan Noesen is not a big volume guy – and never will be – but generating less than Nathan Bastian is a big yikes. I was really disappointed with his playoffs.
The rest is probably what you’d expect.
1. Rich people tend to want to maximize profits on everything. Unless you are Steve Cohen or Steve Ballmer, in which case winning is the only thing that matters. But even rich owners usually have others invested in the team who want to see a profit on their investment. Sports teams ownership is a bit different than others because it is more of a passion thing where it's okay to lose a little money if you get ROI in terms of better performance, but it's still not how billionaires are wired.They own the trash 76ers and just committed to a multi-billion $$$ stadium for the Commies in DC. Zero chance the owners demanded playoff profits as an influential factor. Rounding error for them.
And no, team didn't NEED to make the playoffs this year (post Hughes injury) more than they NEED to be able to get out of the 1st round before Nico needs an extension.
I was... but that ain't me. I wanted O'Reilly when he left St. Louis but not now. He's still decent but he's got about a 75% chance of falling down the Palat/Tatar trejectory of production. Not what we need now as much as I'd love to have had him this playoffs.
And how many players in FA have Kovacevic’s exact track record of ‘one’ year as a quality starting defenseman who isn’t offensive or overtly physical?
My wife always tells me the color and texture of my shit is an indicator of overall health…you and her may be on to something here
A 1999 Porsche Boxster with an automatic transmission and 126,578 miles and it needs a new top and the A/C does not work. There are some small tears in the seats and the paint is faded on the hood. He's asking $30k.
No it doesn't...a bad contract is too much money and immovable...or least unattractive to the majority of potential suitors.
And no, team didn't NEED to make the playoffs this year (post Hughes injury) more than they NEED to be able to get out of the 1st round before Nico needs an extension.
I couldn't imagine a scenario where Nemec wasn't moved in that deal.
Looks like it. All 3 are close and Quinn stays at their place when he's in the area.
His agent's son, apparently. He tagged Quinn in his IG stories.
