Devils discussion (news, notes and speculation) - playoff edition

[guitarguyvic]

Fitz has a really good sense of what the strengths and weaknesses are of his team, but he wayyyyy overcorrects in the opposite direction and always pays too high of a price.

I have no idea how he's going to clean up this mess at forward. We need a minimum of like 4 new guys. Haula and Palat need to be gone by any means necessary, Bastian needs to be replaced with a guy that can play hockey. Dowling is an AHL player. MacDermid needs to be launched into the sun, useless garbage.

I don't know if you can con another team into thinking Mercer has value as a reclamation project. If you can, do it, swap him for another forward that has question marks and see if you can win the jackpot.

I don't have any issues with Cotter, he's cheap and has some juice but he needs to be on the 4th line. Lazar is fine as a 4th line WINGER, he should not be taking draws. Tatar I'm fine with bringing back on a cheap 1 yr 1 M deal and I don't really care what happens with Sprong, he's a career 13th forward.

Only thing I disagree here is with Mercer. I don’t get why people think we are better off trading him for another question mark. How does that make the team better? We are already in a position where at least 4 forwards, probably more, need to be upgraded. Expecting Mercer to also be in that group is just completely unrealistic at this point. Even in his worst seasons so far, he’s put up close to 20 goals and 40 points while playing alongside complete junk. We need third line forwards - well, that’s basically what his floor is. Why would we get rid of a young cheap player that fulfills a need we currently have?

 

[theoptimist]

Things are different now, we’ve recognized Timo can’t/won’t play the Miles Wood game for 82 regular season games. And I don’t like him on the PP. He’s the Swiss Palmieri. People always called Palmieri a ‘grinder’ when he was here but the only thing he did was grind my gears. He was the toughest guy in our top 6 that among Nico, Hall, Bratt, Zacha. So in this case, yes, Timo is grinder on a line with Nico, Jack, Bratt, Haula.

Timo is a fine player and the $8.8M won’t hurt in a few seasons. He won’t be moved anytime soon, but that’s a function of his contract/roster needs. He is NOT a core player.

Paul Cotter is a bottom 6 star. He is an elite grinder, and paired with a competent center, can be the basis of a solid bottom 6. Cody Glass is not his center, nor is Daniel Sprong his winger. I expect both to be gone by July. An appropriate center for Paul Cotter is Sean Kuraly type.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

shitting on Timo Meier and propping up Paul Cotter is certainly....something

 

[Guadana]

I'd like to think 2022-23 wasn't just a fluke, but we have two seasons since now of him basically producing at the same rate, which makes me wonder if this is just more the real Mercer. Which is not a bad player by the way, just maybe not as impactful as we thought he was going to be 2 years ago.

Mercer was a player in shape. I think he lost some confidence. Palat and Haula were good NHLers for their role. 3 players. Its entire line plus Jack plus better bottom line center(better as a player, not as a person). Its a lot to loose.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

There's nothing he can do though, other than destroy the future.

Trade more 1st rounders, trade Nemec/Casey, sign depth players in FA for more than they're worth. He set himself up for failure and he most likely will damage it more to save his job a little longer.

They have 0 foward prospects ready to step in other than Grits as of right now. Maybe Lenni as a long shot. They need an entire 3rd line, and 1 top 6 winger at least, preferably 2. Need to reinforce the center position quite a bit as well.

Fitz needs to start drafting better. Building half your roster from FA is not it.

In general I agree with this take. The core is safe this summer, and when we talk about the forwards this summer, we’re talking about the bottom six. Gritsyuk coming in hopefully addressed one of those.

Through some combination of trade and FA, I don’t think it’s insurmountable at all to address that without putting next year’s first on the table. Mercer and Nemec have enough cache to get good role players. Sure, maybe you lose the trades on pure “value”, but that’s where we’re at. It is what it is.

The drafting has really been a killer. Just going after size has been absurd. And then when one of those guys shows a promising D+1 like Traff, he just moves him for a middling rental like Dumoulin lol. Terrible.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Again, why are we trading Mercer - a young cheap player that can fill our needs on the third line?

 

[Call Me Al]

honestly i don’t want fitz to be the guy trying to clean up this mess. he can’t plug a hole without opening up another and hasn’t demonstrated an ability to build a complete roster or draft competently. he was left with a pretty good situation and he wasn’t able to build on 22-23 at all.

 

[JrFischer54]

Fitz has a really good sense of what the strengths and weaknesses are of his team, but he wayyyyy overcorrects in the opposite direction and always pays too high of a price.

I have no idea how he's going to clean up this mess at forward. We need a minimum of like 4 new guys. Haula and Palat need to be gone by any means necessary, Bastian needs to be replaced with a guy that can play hockey. Dowling is an AHL player. MacDermid needs to be launched into the sun, useless garbage.

I don't know if you can con another team into thinking Mercer has value as a reclamation project. If you can, do it, swap him for another forward that has question marks and see if you can win the jackpot.

I don't have any issues with Cotter, he's cheap and has some juice but he needs to be on the 4th line. Lazar is fine as a 4th line WINGER, he should not be taking draws. Tatar I'm fine with bringing back on a cheap 1 yr 1 M deal and I don't really care what happens with Sprong, he's a career 13th forward.

bottom lines are easier to replace so i'm not worried about that but fixing the bottom lines aren't going to make the softcore succeed in the playoffs. they aren't going to suddenly want to get physical win battles and play with some grit.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Again, why are we trading Mercer - a young cheap player that can fill our needs on the third line?

over the last 2 years, Mercer plays more per game at 5 on 5 than Bratt does, 4th most among forwards. He is not being deployed as a 3rd liner at all. Now, if you want to say that is on the coaches, fine sure I would probably agree, but the fact remains. He is being deployed as a top player and he is simply not that.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

bottom lines are easier to replace so i'm not worried about that but fixing the bottom lines aren't going to make the softcore succeed in the playoffs. they aren't going to suddenly want to get physical win battles and play with some grit.

so let me ask you this, if they are incapable of doing it, did I just misremember the 2023 Rangers series? Did that series just not happen?

 

[JrFischer54]

so let me ask you this, if they are incapable of doing it, did I just misremember the 2023 Rangers series? Did that series just not happen?

yeah that happened i mean some context though is needed like in the 3 loses they got stomped. had to win a game in overtime another with a late eng then took over in games 5 and 7. thats not really a series i would hang my hat on as proof this softcore has what it takes to win

then proceeded to get absolutely stomped in the next round

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

yeah that happened i mean some context though is needed like in the 3 loses they got stomped. had to win a game in overtime another with a late eng then took over in games 5 and 7. thats not really a series i would hang my hat on as proof this softcore has what it takes to win

then proceeded to get absolutely stomped in the next round

Hmm so you're saying they won a hard-fought, close series against a hated division rival, after going down 2-0? hmm, sounds like a team that actually does have some fight that they are capable of! Whoda thunk it.

 

[JrFischer54]

Again, why are we trading Mercer - a young cheap player that can fill our needs on the third line?

i wouldn't trade mercer hes fine in a bottom 6 role. the first year production is most likely a fluke but hes a serviceable player in the bottom 6 you aren't going to get much for him if you deal him anyway

 

[JrFischer54]

Hmm so you're saying they won a hard-fought, close series against a hated division rival, after going down 2-0? hmm, sounds like a team that actually does have some fight that they are capable of! Whoda thunk it.

sure did which they were dominated in half almost half the series won two squeakers and dominated the other two. you are correct*

 

[RSeen]

Really unfortunate to see the missteps Fitz has taken. This team should not have been as bad as it is without Jack. Our depth up front is horrible and the fact that we can't score given what we were building up to being is embarrassing.

Having players with Palat and Dillon on the books for multiple years is going to hurt us.

We've been unwatchable for a while now.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Only thing I disagree here is with Mercer. I don’t get why people think we are better off trading him for another question mark. How does that make the team better? We are already in a position where at least 4 forwards, probably more, need to be upgraded. Expecting Mercer to also be in that group is just completely unrealistic at this point. Even in his worst seasons so far, he’s put up close to 20 goals and 40 points while playing alongside complete junk. We need third line forwards - well, that’s basically what his floor is. Why would we get rid of a young cheap player that fulfills a need we currently have?

Because Mercer is not good and doesn't really contribute in any meaningful way to the bottom 6 - he is bad at faceoffs, is bad defensively, isn't physical, and scores at a pretty pedestrian rate. He only had 4 more goals than Palat who everyone is ready to attach a sweetener to in order to ship out, and only 3 more goals than Cotter who is a 4th liner.

My genius idea, which might create some future problems but might help now, would be trying to convince Chicago to trade us Teuvo Teravainen + either Tyler Bertuzzi or Ilya Mikheyev for Mercer + Nemec + Palat + possibly picks. Teravainen would be an awesome 3C that could play up if Jack is injured, he has lots of juice offensively and could be paired with some more tougher/jam wingers like Meier or Noesen. Nemec is talented young D, which they desperately need, and are getting him for pennies on the dollar. I don't love Bertuzzi, but he's an improvement over the wingers we have now and I suspect if we give them Palat they'd want to move him back. He has 1 year more term than Palat but the cap number is better and he's a much more effective player. Mikheyev, don't know much about him, but he is only signed for one more year and makes sense as a veteran rental.

Money is mostly a wash.

Bratt-Hughes-Noesen
Meier-Hischier-Bertuzzi/Mikheyev
XXXX-Teravainen-Gritsyuk
Lazar-Glass-Cotter

Still need to dump Haula and get a middle-6 winger with some offensive skill (there are some decent vet wingers in this UFA class). But it's a start.

 

[guitarguyvic]

over the last 2 years, Mercer plays more per game at 5 on 5 than Bratt does, 4th most among forwards. He is not being deployed as a 3rd liner at all. Now, if you want to say that is on the coaches, fine sure I would probably agree, but the fact remains. He is being deployed as a top player and he is simply not that.

How he’s being deployed is a separate issue. Construct a proper roster where he can be slotted in as a third line player who can move up the lineup when there are injuries, that would be perfectly fine IMO. If you trade him, it’s for another player in a similar circumstance which means we aren’t guaranteed to upgrade or improve. It totally reeks of another move where we get rid of a cheap young depth player without making the team any better.

 

[JrFischer54]

long way to go but is this team capable of avoiding a sweep? dont think we have ever been swept

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Fitz going into the offseason thinking he needs to trade Mercer and Nemec to save his job is a recipe for disaster.

 

[TrufleShufle]

Mercer would have to get even worse next year for me even to consider trading him a good idea. Honestly if he has any trade value at all, with his age and play style, he still has value to the team.

Sending away guys because we are frustrated with their progress is a bad idea. It's not the same as Holtz, he was projected to be something and it never happened. If Mercer never had the great start he had, and was always just this player, we would all be fine with him. He's perfect for the bottom 6 and if he finds his form anymore he can easily slot up the line up.

I'm willing to hold onto Mercer until he figures it out or no other team in the league would pick him up on waivers.

 

[Edmonton East]

Because Mercer is not good and doesn't really contribute in any meaningful way to the bottom 6 - he is bad at faceoffs, is bad defensively, isn't physical, and scores at a pretty pedestrian rate. He only had 4 more goals than Palat who everyone is ready to attach a sweetener to in order to ship out, and only 3 more goals than Cotter who is a 4th liner.

My genius idea, which might create some future problems but might help now, would be trying to convince Chicago to trade us Teuvo Teravainen + either Tyler Bertuzzi or Ilya Mikheyev for Mercer + Nemec + Palat + possibly picks. Teravainen would be an awesome 3C that could play up if Jack is injured, he has lots of juice offensively and could be paired with some more tougher/jam wingers like Meier or Noesen. Nemec is talented young D, which they desperately need, and are getting him for pennies on the dollar. I don't love Bertuzzi, but he's an improvement over the wingers we have now and I suspect if we give them Palat they'd want to move him back. He has 1 year more term than Palat but the cap number is better and he's a much more effective player. Mikheyev, don't know much about him, but he is only signed for one more year and makes sense as a veteran rental.

Money is mostly a wash.

Bratt-Hughes-Noesen
Meier-Hischier-Bertuzzi/Mikheyev
XXXX-Teravainen-Gritsyuk
Lazar-Glass-Cotter

Still need to dump Haula and get a middle-6 winger with some offensive skill (there are some decent vet wingers in this UFA class). But it's a start.

None of this is gonna happen, so I just wanna focus on the top line ya have even in your hypothetical. You gotta realize that would never work, right? Noesen can't skate. He has no stamina either. He's a perfect 3rd liner, but there's a reason he signed a relatively cheap contract AND he gets 13min or less in a competent organization. He cannot be in the top 6. 3rd liner + powerplay role or this team is screwed yet again....which will prob be the case because they have limited roster/cap flexibility since Fitz is a bottom 5 NHL GM.

 

[AfroThunder396]

None of this is gonna happen, so I just wanna focus on the top line ya have even in your hypothetical. You gotta realize that would never work, right? Noesen can't skate. He has no stamina either. He's a perfect 3rd liner, but there's a reason he signed a relatively cheap contract AND he gets 13min or less in a competent organization. He cannot be in the top 6. 3rd liner + powerplay role or this team is screwed yet again....which will prob be the case because they have limited roster/cap flexibility since Fitz is a bottom 5 NHL GM.

Who gives a shit what the line is, figure it out in camp

 

[JrFischer54]

Fitz going into the offseason thinking he needs to trade Mercer and Nemec to save his job is a recipe for disaster.

to be fair they both kinda stink so its fitting that hes the one that drafted them

 

[NJDevs26]

Fitz doesn’t NEED to trade Mercer but he’s pretty well boxed himself in on Nemec

 

[thebeernerd]

Still not sold on giving up on Nemec.