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

That should do it 😬

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I think it’s more likely the bottom six is Gritsyuk - Haula - Mercer and Cotter - 4C - Noesen on paper.

Dougie for Marchment + Dumba is my dream semi-realistic off-season deal. I’d also like to see the Devils sign a forward or two like Mangiapane or Beauvillier or Zetterlund if he’s not qualified that have sleeper potential to be productive third wheel forwards.

Assuming the above happens:

Marchment - Hughes - Bratt
Mangiapane - Hischier - Meier
Gritsyuk - Haula - Mercer
Cotter - Glass - Noesen
McDermid

I could get behind this but my biggest concern here would be the center depth. I do wonder if Mercer’s recent play has changed the organizations opinions about him being able to play center with a play driving winger like Meier or Bratt.

Forward group still needs an upgrade, but that’s what the deadline is for.
Yea but even in your dream scenario, they don't have a single C comfortable in front of the net or driving (Nico does his best because he has to). More importantly, they also don't have a single C capable of stepping into the top 6 if Nico or Jack go down, which you allude to. They badly need a very high end 3C/low 2C. It's a requirement if they wanna take a serious step towards contending. Not a nice to have. Everything else is window dressing. Just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic without one.

In my perfect, entirely unrealistic offseason....they need a legit well rounded 2C. Solid at the dot 47%+. 6'1" or so; comfortable battling in front. Above average shooter, not a pure volume guy, so say 13%+ arbitrarily. A 25-30 type. Adds versatility to your center pool. That one miracle add would fix so many other issues with this roster. It also provides Jack insurance if he can't stay healthy or....even ends up being better suited as a Winger. Hasn't further progressed/rounded out his C game for 2 years now....not arguing this on here because most will freak out incoherently. But that's objective reality. League is littered with plenty of high profile Cs in their younger years who ended up being better suited on the wing in the NHL...and were still incredible players. Especially players of Jack's stature (more than just height). Conversely, if Jack progresses his C game and stays healthy, GREAT. Congrats Devs, you now actually have the spine of a serious contender.
 
I saw rumors about problems with health of Dillon. If its true - situation with Dumo could be very different. If he will recover normally, than I will not wait Dumo for next season.

If we are talking about Dogie - yeah, some trust in your young players, some trust in helping of Gritsyuk, some trust in new top-6F\competent 3rd line center(I hope).
I really like Dougie and Im not sure at all that we will trade him(I think its less likey than more likely) but I think its a last (and the first) good opportunity to trade him.
I think if someone comes to me with a good offer, I certainly listen. But I would not actively be trying to shop Hamilton.

I've said in here somewhere above, but if dillon is LTIRetired or whatever (which I've heard nothing about), I'd use that money on a forward (let's say Jason Dickinson for now).

Gritysuk-Hughes-Bratt
Noesen-Nico-Meier
Palat-Dickinson-Mercer
Cotter-Haula-Glass
Lazar, Bastian (I know one of these f***s will be macdermid instead but let me dream about my healthy scratches)
Hughes-Kovy
Siegs-Hamilton
Pesce-Nemec
Forbort (or some other 7 LHD).
Markstrom
Daws
 
Yea but even in your dream scenario, they don't have a single C comfortable in front of the net or driving (Nico does his best because he has to). More importantly, they also don't have a single C capable of stepping into the top 6 if Nico or Jack go down, which you allude to. They badly need a very high end 3C/low 2C. It's a requirement if they wanna take a serious step towards contending. Not a nice to have. Everything else is window dressing. Just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic without one.

In my perfect, entirely unrealistic offseason....they need a legit well rounded 2C. Solid at the dot 47%+. 6'1" or so; comfortable battling in front. Above average shooter, not a pure volume guy, so say 13%+ arbitrarily. A 25-30 type. Adds versatility to your center pool. That one miracle add would fix so many other issues with this roster. It also provides Jack insurance if he can't stay healthy or....even ends up being better suited as a Winger. Hasn't further progressed/rounded out his C game for 2 years now....not arguing this on here because most will freak out incoherently. But that's objective reality. League is littered with plenty of high profile Cs in their younger years who ended up being better suited on the wing in the NHL...and were still incredible players. Especially players of Jack's stature (more than just height). Conversely, if Jack progresses his C game and stays healthy, GREAT. Congrats Devs, you now actually have the spine of a serious contender.
Just say you want to give sam bennett an 8x8 this offseason and move on. There he is, there's your guy basically described exactly. And that's what said piece costs.

"even ends up being better suited as a Winger" honestly makes me suspect you're a troll who's a fan of another team.

There's like 1 team I can think of that had the kind of C core you're describing and it's the Crosby-Malkin-Staal penguins.

You could get that if you wanted, but you'd be playing with bare bones around it. (which then you'd be upset about this).
 
Say it slowly everyone. Noesen physically cannot play in the top 6. If he is in the top 6 starting next season, this team isn't making the playoffs. If he plays a material amount of games in the top 6 during the season, this team isn't making the playoffs. Dude has gotten run into the ground just this season....you can see it on his face. His body language. In interviews. And how he's played. He's had to play 3+ minutes more a night than he's capable of, longer shifts, and it's gonna kill him. He has 2 ES goals since Christmas while playing 16min a night ffs. Like what are you watching @dgibb10 ??? Maybe more time watching games vs posting here incessantly.
 
I really disagree about trying to buy "top 6 wingers"

They cost way more because of point totals, most of the ones really available are not actually that good (carried by some combo of linemates and PP time). And again, they're expensive. And then the point totals will drop as they leave PP1. And they may not fit. And they rarely make already great stars reach the next level.

I think you make these top 6 wingers by finding diamonds in the rough that FIT alongside your stars. Warren Foegele heading into this past offseason was someone who I thought would work great with Jack/Bratt.

Especially since you also can't REALLY just "push guys down a line".

The roster you showed is 4 offensive minded lines. Not a lot of great PKers, or defensively minded guys at ALL beyond Nico and Mercer.
And where are these diamonds in the rough currently in the organization? Lenni is at least a year away maybe? They really have nobody else viable from within, any solution for the immediate future's going to have to come from the outside either via trade or FA. You can't just keep sticking Noesen and Cotter in the top six and hope it works out, we know the guys we have aren't going to cut it in a top six.

It's fine to say just moneyball the solution but it's harder to find moneyball solutions for offense than it is, say a Siegenthaler or Kovacevic defensively. Have we had an acquisition like that up front for a top six forward since Shero pulled Palmeiri out of his rear end on basically his first day here lol?
 
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Say it slowly everyone. Noesen physically cannot play in the top 6. If he is in the top 6 starting next season, this team isn't making the playoffs. If he plays a material amount of games in the top 6 during the season, this team isn't making the playoffs. Dude has gotten run into the ground just this season....you can see it on his face. His body language. In interviews. And how he's played. He's had to play 3+ minutes more a night than he's capable of, longer shifts, and it's gonna kill him. He has 2 ES goals since Christmas while playing 16min a night ffs. Like what are you watching @dgibb10 ???
Again. The 2nd winger on a Nico Hischier line doesn't really matter. heck the 1st winger doesn't even matter that much.

We did, objectively, make the playoffs with Noesen playing a significant amount of time in the top 6. It happened.

When we made the playoffs in 22-23? The wingers for Nico were Mercer and Tatar.

I don't know what this weird obsession is with needing this "legit top 6" winger for Hischier is. Same with "insert pairing".

It doesn't matter. Nico-Noesen-Meier WORKS as a line. Sure, nico's carrying noesen. Do I give a f***? No.

In fact I'd rather someone who isn't driving things on his own BE with nico. I'd rather have a guy on the 3rd line be more of an individual driver himself.
 
No team in the NHL has 6 true top-six forwards. And again, its basically top 9 and then 4th line anyways nowadays in the NHL with forward deployment and ES ice time.

I think we need two "new" top 9 forwards and two "new" 4th liners (unless you want to say that Haula OR Glass are going to be the 4C?)
You also can't have guys who shouldn't even be top nine players in the top six, which we've had too often this year. And there is a bit of a separation between top six and bottom six this year for a simple reason - the dropoff between Hughes/Hischier and anyone else. If you get a legit third-line center then you can start thinking in terms of top nine rather than top six.

I think DevsRR's blueprint is fine, two legit top six forwards and one third-line center. Whether we can actually get all of them at once is another thing, maybe two in the offseason and one at the deadline, at least that should be the goal. Just because teams don't 'have six top six wingers' doesn't mean we stop trying, cause at least you find depth that way. The center's probably more important than the two wingers though.
 
No team in the NHL has 6 true top-six forwards. And again, its basically top 9 and then 4th line anyways nowadays in the NHL with forward deployment and ES ice time.

I think we need two "new" top 9 forwards and two "new" 4th liners (unless you want to say that Haula OR Glass are going to be the 4C?)
100% agree.

NJD needs 5 guys who can fill out a top 9. 3 to drive a 3rd line. (probably the 5th, 6th, and 9th best forwards on the team here tbh)

and then 2 guys who can hang with and compliment the 2 duos. This can be Palat and Noesen tbh, (I honestly think it's where Palat is at his most helpful)
 
I don't think this team needs 2 top 6 players, most teams also tend to build teams to get to the deadline and then add a big piece there or the finishing touches. Similar to what we did in 22-23. We got an insanely good year from Mercer/Tatar. Jack and Bratt had the revolving door with him most of the year and we thought Timo would be the missing piece but we found out quickly that Jack/Timo couldn't play with each other with how both shoot the puck at high rates. If the Devils can just add bottom 6 depth, you can flip around the lineup anyway when a guy is playing good or bad. We had f***ing Paul Cotter taking top line minutes this year when he was scoring. That's an issue in itself. I can see the arguments for both being said here. It's up to Fitz to decide which direction he wants to go.
 
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You also can't have guys who shouldn't even be top nine players in the top six, which we've had too often this year.

I think DevsRR's blueprint is fine, two legit top six forwards and one third-line center. Whether we can actually get all of them at once is another thing, maybe two in the offseason and one at the deadline, at least that should be the goal. Just because teams don't 'have six top six wingers' doesn't mean we stop trying, cause at least you find depth that way. The center's probably more important than the two wingers though.
The cost of "two legit top 6 forwards and one third line center" probably approaches close to 20 mill a year in money, or VERY significant trade assets.

No, this is not feasible.

NJD has 4 stars.

Beyond that, "top 9" is somewhere within the best 300 or so forwards in the league (32x9)

Mercer, Palat, Noesen, Gritysuk all fall into that category and role. (that's 8). Leaving 1 more to add.


Glass, Haula and Cotter are probably somewhere below that line depending on who's having an up or down year. You're probably fine having 1 of them in your top 9 after an injury, but no, it isn't ideal.
 
Give me two Swiss army players who can play anywhere in the lineup and then a 3C and we're cooking.

I wanted Warren Foegle so f***ing bad last year, I think he would've killed it with Jack/Bratt. Someone like that. If they want to do Boeser also even though I'm not the biggest fan I can understand the logic there as well
 
Again. The 2nd winger on a Nico Hischier line doesn't really matter. heck the 1st winger doesn't even matter that much.

We did, objectively, make the playoffs with Noesen playing a significant amount of time in the top 6. It happened.

When we made the playoffs in 22-23? The wingers for Nico were Mercer and Tatar.

I don't know what this weird obsession is with needing this "legit top 6" winger for Hischier is. Same with "insert pairing".

It doesn't matter. Nico-Noesen-Meier WORKS as a line. Sure, nico's carrying noesen. Do I give a f***? No.

In fact I'd rather someone who isn't driving things on his own BE with nico. I'd rather have a guy on the 3rd line be more of an individual driver himself.
Lol dude, Nico is currently the only true top 6 C on this roster. This impacts his deployment. A lot. Even when Jack was healthy, Nico had the toughest deployment of any top 6 C in the entire league by a mile. You know who else is materially impacted by those deployments? HIS LINEMATES. So AGAIN, Noesen physically cannot play the minutes required to be in the top 6. Go read it again.

I give up. You don't wanna learn and you don't have convos in good faith. Best of luck.
 
The cost of "two legit top 6 forwards and one third line center" probably approaches close to 20 mill a year in money, or VERY significant trade assets.

No, this is not feasible.
One free agent and one offseason trade, with one in-season trade.

You can't hold onto cap or picks forever when you're a win-now team, in fact you and others have to prepare for the fact we'll have very little of both the next few years unless something goes really wrong.
 
One free agent and one offseason trade, with one in-season trade.

You can't hold onto cap or picks forever when you're a win-now team, in fact you and others have to prepare for the fact we'll have very little of both the next few years unless something goes really wrong.
NJD is not a "win now" team.


NJD is a win for 10 years team. Which means yes, you need to maintain a supply of picks and prospects to have cheap depth and fill gaps with. You need to let your "bad contracts" go out on their own sometimes, especially when they are still solid players (or in some cases legit star defensemen).

Because UFA contracts do end bad. You do not want to be getting into a vicious cycle of paying to dump players, replacing that money, and dumping it in a few years again (because that is how the UFA cycle and even trades for vets tends to go).

If you want deals that don't need to be dumped? That's your picks, your prospects, your guys like cody glass who you take shots on.

There's an old saying, you can get 2 of good, cheap, and fast. Not all 3. It applies to hockey too (replace fast with safe/dependable)
 
Give me two Swiss army players who can play anywhere in the lineup and then a 3C and we're cooking.

I wanted Warren Foegle so f***ing bad last year, I think he would've killed it with Jack/Bratt. Someone like that. If they want to do Boeser also even though I'm not the biggest fan I can understand the logic there as well
Ditto on foegele. Ditto on the targets, although I think we can do that to an extent in house if we can get a 3C to really drive that line
 
Well now you're debating semantics, but there's no 'win for ten year' plan when nobody is signed past 2031 and guys are the ages they are. It's more like a 5-7 year plan, when I say win now it's not have to win a Cup next year, I mean we're in a 5-7 year cycle of trying to win ASAP. Jack will be 30, Nico and Bratt 33 and Timo 35 when we get to the end of seven years and our defense will have completely changed over. The whole fantasy of trying to win for ten years is what gets Carolina into trouble ironically sometimes, until they finally figured out their window might be ending and made the desperate Rantanen move which backfired. Colorado tried the ten year plan and kept going splat in the playoffs till they finally went in just in time before Landeskog blew up on them.

Sure you need to keep SOME picks, but you also need to be able to draft and develop those picks. Which quite frankly we've generally come up short on anyway. It would help if we were able to develop this current crop of defensemen we have to where at least a couple are key contributors.
 
Lol dude, Nico is currently the only true top 6 C on this roster. This impacts his deployment. A lot. Even when Jack was healthy, Nico had the toughest deployment of any top 6 C in the entire league by a mile. You know who else is materially impacted by those deployments? HIS LINEMATES. So AGAIN, Noesen physically cannot play the minutes required to be in the top 6. Go read it again.

I give up. You don't wanna learn and you don't have convos in good faith. Best of luck.
"We only have 1 top 6 C on the roster". Again, you appear to be a troll.

Nico Hischier's deployments are not as tough as you make them out to be. Hard? Yeah.
He took a lot of FACEOFFS this year due to issues there that were previously covered by McLeod and Haula being 2 other 56+% guys last year.

But the statement that nico took the hardest deployments in the league by a mile is just dishonesty.

Also, building a legit 3rd line is literally how you make Nico's life easier
 
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Well now you're debating semantics, but there's no 'win for ten year' plan when nobody is signed past 2031 and guys are the ages they are. It's more like a 5-7 year plan, when I say win now it's not win a Cup next year, I mean we're in a 5-7 year cycle of trying to win now. Jack will be 30, Nico and Bratt 33 and Timo 35 when we get to the end of seven years and our defense will have completely changed over. The whole fantasy of trying to win for ten years is what gets Carolina into trouble ironically sometimes, until they finally figured out their window might be ending and made the desperate Rantanen move which backfired.

Sure you need to keep SOME picks, but you also need to be able to draft and develop those picks. Which quite frankly we've generally come up short on anyway. It would help if we were able to develop this current crop of defensemen we have to where at least a couple are key contributors.
Carolina made out like f***ing bandits in the rantanen saga what are you talking about?

They took a sweet commission to play middleman and to see if rantanen fit.
 
Carolina made out like f***ing bandits in the rantanen saga what are you talking about?

They took a sweet commission to play middleman and to see if rantanen fit.
So it's best for a win-now team to punt on both Necas and Rantanen - legit top-line players - and have a 'top nine' forward in Stankoven who isn't nearly as good as either guy now and an over-the-hill Hall? You and the Hurricanes both take the moneyball stuff way too far.

Carolina prioritizes efficiency in payroll over winning, it appears you do the same.
 

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