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

[NjDevsRR]

If anything, this series shows how good of a coach Keefe is. Game 1 didn’t go well so he made the proper adjustments and we have seen a fantastic effort since then. These games should be blowouts, but the team has been in each game. With THIS roster, I say he has done a great job. Get him better offensive players for next season.

 

[thebeernerd]

Agreed, Keefe is doing a hell of a job with what little he has.

Luke being slumped with his shoulder was evident he broke it, they gave the kid probably the highest dosage of painkillers to get through that game 1.

Apparently, bonitis must be an inherited trait from the Weinbergs. Any full season they play from here on out will need to be treated as an absolute fluke that may never be replicated.

 

[Devils Trap]

If anything, this series shows how good of a coach Keefe is. Game 1 didn’t go well so he made the proper adjustments and we have seen a fantastic effort since then. These games should be blowouts, but the team has been in each game. With THIS roster, I say he has done a great job. Get him better offensive players for next season.

Zero issues w ith Keefe. Hes been fantastic all year

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Nah it’s super simple. That’s why so many posters were correct to dismiss any concern’s about this team’s depth prior to March and it was safe for them to assume Fitz was going to correct it at the trade deadline.

Oh wait.

How are you still going on about your concerns in March when it obviously meant absolutely nothing in the end? Everyone got hurt including their best player. Nothing at the deadline is fixing that, you’ll have to get over it. Though he did add Dumo who has been heroic.

It’s possible Fitz would’ve been more aggressive with adding at the deadline before Jack died. After that it made no sense to do anything big.

 

[Nocashstyle]

Aside from this being a hyperbolic caricature of what actually happens in these arguments, it also doesn’t address the fact that no one is claiming the core is “the problem”, which would imply (incorrectly) that we are saying the depth isn’t a problem.

You absolutely have been indirectly hinting at that. Glad to see you walking back on it though.

 

[Devils Trap]

Also as a side affect, I think Dumo has 100% played his way into a new deal this summer and will be brought back for the 3rd pair

Making that trade look even better

 

[NJDevs26]

Dillon is a nutcase (in a good way / warrior) No medical team would ever have allowed him to come back in this game

Just seeing the video of the injury makes you wonder what kind of painkillers they put him on to make him THAT delirious to have him want to come back in

 

[Devils Trap]

Just seeing the video of the injury makes you wonder what kind of painkillers they put him on to make him THAT delirious to have him want to come back in

Dont even think Delirious, just on adrenaline and wanting to help his team. Not realizing like how serious something like this is in the moment

 

[Incharge1976]

How are you still going on about your concerns in March when it obviously meant absolutely nothing in the end? Everyone got hurt including their best player. Nothing at the deadline is fixing that, you’ll have to get over it. Though he did add Dumo who has been heroic.

It’s possible Fitz would’ve been more aggressive with adding at the deadline before Jack died. After that it made no sense to do anything big.

That's actually my biggest complaint. We should have made the trade before or immediately after the roster freeze because we were not playing well since Christmas time. It was obvious the team needed help. He waited and then we lost Jack and Dougie the same game.

 

[Edmonton East]

I actually do wonder what things would be like if Fitz stepped down from GM and just became POHOPS and hired someone else to GM. Probably not much different though.

And in the cases where that’s happened recently, both GMs who stepped down and turned it over to someone else while remaining POHOPS were cup winners with their current team. I’m talking MacLellan in Washington and Sakic in Colorado. And McPhee did it in Vegas just two years in and a year after the cup finals appearance. And McPhee was a GM for the better part of 22 years before that.

Seattle did it this year, but Francis is over 60 and that whole situation seemed weird. That smelled like fired via promotion.

It doesn’t sound like it would happen here for probably a handful more years, if it ever does.

Prob the only way this org gets the front office overhaul they need is a disaster class 2025 season unfortunately....which is possible if they roll into the season with Nico-Jack-Glass down the middle and either Jack or Nico misses material time. Let's say Jack or Nico go down for 20+ games and a 35+ year old Markstrom goes down with another injury. Where does that team finish? How pissed off and loud does the fanbase get? I mean, after all, this team played at a 75 point clip after Christmas even before relatively material injuries occurred...

 

[NJDevs26]

This part of the post is my favorite, I think. Because LITERALLY that is what the analytics would show you lol that those players (Kovacevic and Siegs specifically) had great underlying (I'M TALKING ABOUT ANALYTICS HERE) numbers.

My favorite part is he himself bolded that claim about Fitz doing all those trades in spite of the analytics which is just objectively wrong. I'm as analytics skeptic as anyone when it comes to analyzing one game or ignoring larger trends but they can be good at finding undervalued players.

If Fitz has gone away from analytics anywhere it's the draft, but it's also harder to really get a read on stuff when you're comparing different levels and leagues all around the world.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Agreed, Keefe is doing a hell of a job with what little he has.

Apparently, bonitis must be an inherited trait from the Weinbergs. Any full season they play from here on out will need to be treated as an absolute fluke that may never be replicated.

Hughes shoulders might be the new era phrase for Achilles heel

 

[dgibb10]

How are you still going on about your concerns in March when it obviously meant absolutely nothing in the end? Everyone got hurt including their best player. Nothing at the deadline is fixing that, you’ll have to get over it. Though he did add Dumo who has been heroic.

It’s possible Fitz would’ve been more aggressive with adding at the deadline before Jack died. After that it made no sense to do anything big.

If tom fitzgerald spent significantly earlier AND THEN jack got hurt the pitchforks would have been out even more.

Jack's injury is frankly evidence number 1 of why you wait.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Yes siegs had a small sample size, and yes it was in limited minutes. THATS WHY HE COST A 3RD ROUND PICK MAKING 800K.

I don't know what you think would qualify as an "analytics darling" at that price point lol. Did you expect him to be playing 25 minutes a night and taking on mcdavid?

The analytics showed he was really good, but underused and undervalued. It's literally the exact point.

I mean he's done that at points in his Devils career too, not sure what else more people wanted from that trade. If Siegs was a 3rd pair dman, it would've been good. He's become one of the best defensive dmen in the league since that trade

 

[NJDevs26]

If tom fitzgerald spent significantly earlier AND THEN jack got hurt the pitchforks would have been out even more.

Jack's injury is frankly evidence number 1 of why you wait.

If that happened we might still be winning the first round with a chance to win the second. Can't really use the injuries which happened later as an excuse cause then you could just as easily not have traded for Dumoulin and say well good thing Fitz didn't spend at all at the deadline since every defenseman got hurt in the playoffs anyway!

Waiting also drove up the prices on everyone cause people knew Fitz was over a barrel, he overpaid for Dumoulin, a rental and couldn't stomach the ask for anyone else, which is fine but he had two months to improve the team before that when he had more leverage and more players were available.

 

[dgibb10]

Prob the only way this org gets the front office overhaul they need is a disaster class 2025 season unfortunately....which is possible if they roll into the season with Nico-Jack-Glass down the middle and either Jack or Nico misses material time. Let's say Jack or Nico go down for 20+ games and a 35+ year old Markstrom goes down with another injury. Where does that team finish? How pissed off and loud does the fanbase get? I mean, after all, this team played at a 75 point clip after Christmas even before relatively material injuries occurred...

What should Tom Fitzgerald do to prevent Jack Hughes or Nico Hischier from getting hurt?

As we have seen from just this year, he built a roster good enough to make the playoffs with Hughes missing 20+ games, and Markstrom missing significant time.

 

[dgibb10]

If that happened we might still be winning the first round with a chance to win the second. Can't really use the injuries which happened later as an excuse cause then you could just as easily say well good thing Fitz didn't spend at all at the deadline since every defenseman got hurt in the playoffs anyway!

We'd also probably be out our 1st round pick next year.

Which player(s) should he have acquired, and when, that would have made us beat the hurricanes right now?

 

[Nocashstyle]

Also as a side affect, I think Dumo has 100% played his way into a new deal this summer and will be brought back for the 3rd pair

Making that trade look even better

Yeah I think the rumored severity of the Dillon injury makes resigning Dumo a lot more likely.

 

[dgibb10]

"Why doesn't fitz just build a team good enough to be a contender without Jack Hughes" is again the most insane take and unrealistic expectations of a GM you see here constantly

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

If that happened we might still be winning the first round with a chance to win the second. Can't really use the injuries which happened later as an excuse cause then you could just as easily not have traded for Dumoulin and say well good thing Fitz didn't spend at all at the deadline since every defenseman got hurt in the playoffs anyway!

There's no trade that would've helped this team he could've made earlier in the year to help them now. Not to mention, they played a total 1 month of good hockey. They give up a Lenni or Casey package because Fitz bought in on the team in December for Brock Nelson/Palmieri, what's the end goal there? Nelson has 2 points in the playoffs where this board is goal cherrypicking stats between Bratt/Timo and Palmieri is the streakiest winger in the league from what we know from his days in NJ

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

"Why doesn't fitz just build a team good enough to be a contender without Jack Hughes" is again the most insane take and unrealistic expectations of a GM you see here constantly

Fitz sucks but it's not just doable. People are out to lunch without realizing how good Jack Hughes is. We win this series with a healthy Jack

 

[Devils731]

"Why doesn't fitz just build a team good enough to be a contender without Jack Hughes" is again the most insane take and unrealistic expectations of a GM you see here constantly

I’m not a GM so it’s not my job figuring out how to replace multiple star players value for next to nothing.

 

[dgibb10]

Yeah I think the rumored severity of the Dillon injury makes resigning Dumo a lot more likely.

I would hate this.

4 mill in free cap for forwards AND a spot to play nemec falls into our lap and we decide to, get another dman with it?

 

[Devils Trap]

Yeah I think the rumored severity of the Dillon injury makes resigning Dumo a lot more likely.

Instant fit on the top PK unit, left handed as well. Its about as like to like replacement as we can get

 

[Devils Trap]

I would hate this.

4 mill in free cap for forwards AND a spot to play nemec falls into our lap and we decide to, get another dman with it?

We need another guy for the PK, and we need a left handed Dman. Nemec cant do either of those things.

I think its likely we look to shop Dougie and make this the D core:

Luke - Pesce
Siegs - Kovy
Dumo - Nemec