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

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

1.) I’m not going to read into the PK in the playoffs because playoff special teams is so matchup based.

2.) Another factor in the bad PK was that pretty much every other defensemen was injured or playoff injured. Also, they lost one of their better PK forwards in March.

So that’s less of a worry for me.

Which is fine but they still let a shit powerplay run rampant on them in the first round and probably won the round because of it. Our strengths became weaknesses. Dillon sucks but he's still a good PK'er. You better find someone who can kill penalties as well if you get out of that deal is all.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

He didn't have to be perfect last night or in Game 4 imo.

You ask any of us if we scored 4 in Carolina, we should expect a win.

Game 4, he sunk us before we even had a chance to get our legs.

Because he's not that good. He's just ok. We can't look at him like he's some elite goalie, but that's what people seem to expect.

The thing I don't really understand is that all of our goalies seem to suffer from the same thing the rest of the team does. One thing goes wrong and next thing you know they can't stop a beach ball. One bad goal turns into 3 or 4 in a matter of minutes. But if the goalie isn't falling apart, it's the defense. Or if the defense isn't falling apart, it's the offense. It's always something and it always goes from bad to catastrophic at break neck speed.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

NJ needs to find a way to trade for Schenn and maybe sign Ehlers, I know it's quite difficult with the cap but our inability to develop middle 6 forwards is really hurting us.

If people hate Bratt's playoffs then LOL @ when they see Ehlers, I like Ehlers too but just saying

 

[AfroThunder396]

The margin for error was very low in this series. I thought we largely played well and were competitive in this series outside of Game 1. We lost along the margins - depth, special teams, and inconsistency killed us.

That being said, the bones of this thing are solid. This isn't like Ruff's team, which had FAR more talent but looked like a peewee team up against Carolina. We belonged on the same ice as them. Games 2-5 were all one goal game not counting ENGs. Again, very slim margin for error but if a couple of bounces go our way we would still be playing right now.

The thing is, every year Fitz has been the GM, we go into the offseason with obvious needs and he addresses them. Does he overpay to fill those needs? Usually. Does he always find the perfect fit? No. But it's clear to everyone with a functioning brain that we need a deeper forward group and I'm confident that we will get some good additions. Plus, there really isn't room for much improvement at D and G either, at least nothing is obviously available that would be cheap enough to be worth it.

For as frustrating as this year was, it's easy to forget where we're coming from. A year ago Travis Green was interim HC and Kaapo Kahkonen was our tandem starter. If I had told you then that Jack Hughes would miss half the season, but we would still make the playoffs outright as 3rd in the division and win a home playoff game, I think everyone would have signed up for that. This season is an unmistakable success even if it doesn't feel like it.

I will have more specific thoughts later, this is my last day of work before I'm off for the summer. Still want some time to digest things.

 

[Edmonton East]

i dunno man. giving up momentum and letting the crowd back in it is backbreaking. he wouldn’t have had to do any of those things if he didn’t let 3 out of 4 shots past him in 4 minutes.

taking the home crowd out of our game 4 less than one minute in because he doesn’t know how to look around a pretty weak screen is also on him. he also gave up the crushingly weak 4th goal that effectively ended the game with 10 minutes left.

this is the guy we went all in on, he has to be better in those spots.

Help me square how you say the above in this thread regarding Markstrom, but disagreed (at least in part) with my post in the GDT. This is literally what Markstrom is. Like, did folks expect him to be some elite consistent Vezina caliber goalie? That's not what he was/is. I don't understand. 3 of the preceding 4 years he was a streaky .900 sv% guy, known for disproportionately letting in early goals and laughable softies, yet good vs high danger. And when he's in the zone, he's fantastic. This has been his shtick for years.

What I posted in GDT:
Yea I mean no one really argued Markstrom wasn't gonna be an upgrade this year. The argument was it was an overpay that should only be made by a team set to seriously contend immediately considering his age/asset value sent. The issue of course is this roster was never going to seriously contend this season, even with Jack. If you make the Markstrom move, you need to be prepared to throw your chips in the middle for a high-end 3C at a minimum before the season starts as well. No half measures. If you can't materially improved the C depth because of silly contracts or whatever reason(s), then you don't overpay for a 35 year old goalie.

A mid 1st and cost controlled giant #4 dman still not in his prime was a general overpay given the goalie market values. Then consider the actual situation for the Devs and it really didn't make sense. Devs got near realistic best case performance out of Markstrom for most of the season....and it still didn't matter. If he was 28, this would be fine. But he wasn't/isn't.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Because he's not that good. He's just ok. We can't look at him like he's some elite goalie, but that's what people seem to expect.

The thing I don't really understand is that all of our goalies seem to suffer from the same thing the rest of the team does. One thing goes wrong and next thing you know they can't stop a beach ball. One bad goal turns into 3 or 4 in a matter of minutes. But if the goalie isn't falling apart, it's the defense. Or if the defense isn't falling apart, it's the offense. It's always something and it always goes from bad to catastrophic at break neck speed.

No one is expecting him to be an elite goalie. He was below a .900 before OT started last night. If he was above that, this series is going back to NJ for a game 6. The damage was already done from the second period that the Devils were never winning that game in Carolina and Markstrom had a huge role in that.

And yes, that was just the 24-25 NJD in a nutshell outside of December. A lot of their issues were self inflicted which makes this season feel worse than it actually is.

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

If people hate Bratt's playoffs then LOL @ when they see Ehlers, I like Ehlers too but just saying

He's at least hurt this time around, right?

 

[youryeah]

It's fine to see it both ways. Markstrom pooped the bed in the second period. The first two goals barely squeaked by him. The first one is whatever, it was a PP and he almost got it having to go back across the crease. The second one almost immediately after is an absolute gut punch and brought life back into their team and the crowd. Keefe tried to settle things down, but they answered again pretty quickly. I think that was a screen, I'd have to look at it again, but regardless he let in 3 goals on the first 3 shots he faced. You can't f***ing let that happen.

All that said, he was phenomenal the rest of the way and gave the team a chance in the 3rd and OT to try and still take the game. It was as wild of a performance that I've ever witnessed in one game.

the human form of

 

[NJDevs26]

People wanted Markstrom to be average and at least make the stops that need to be made, the way Pyotr did last night, the only ones that were actually hyping him up as elite were the Devils themselves (well specifically Marty).

 

[TheUnseenHand]

No one is expecting him to be an elite goalie. He was below a .900 before OT started last night. If he was above that, this series is going back to NJ for a game 6. The damage was already done from the second period that the Devils were never winning that game in Carolina and Markstrom had a huge role in that.

And yes, that was just the 24-25 NJD in a nutshell outside of December. A lot of their issues were self inflicted which makes this season feel worse than it actually is.

It's not just the 24-25 team. It's been this way for the better part of a decade now.

 

[Call Me Al]

Help me square how you say the above in this thread regarding Markstrom, but disagreed (at least in part) with my post in the GDT. This is literally what Markstrom is. Like, did folks expect him to be some elite consistent Vezina caliber goalie? That's not what he was/is. I don't understand. 3 of the preceding 4 years he was a streaky .900 sv% guy, known for disproportionately letting in early goals and laughable softies, yet good vs high danger. And when he's in the zone, he's fantastic. This has been his shtick for years.

What I posted in GDT:
Yea I mean no one really argued Markstrom wasn't gonna be an upgrade this year. The argument was it was an overpay that should only be made by a team set to seriously contend immediately considering his age/asset value sent. The issue of course is this roster was never going to seriously contend this season, even with Jack. If you make the Markstrom move, you need to be prepared to throw your chips in the middle for a high-end 3C at a minimum before the season starts as well. No half measures. If you can't materially improved the C depth because of silly contracts or whatever reason(s), then you don't overpay for a 35 year old goalie.

A mid 1st and cost controlled giant #4 dman still not in his prime was a general overpay given the goalie market values. Then consider the actual situation for the Devs and it really didn't make sense. Devs got near realistic best case performance out of Markstrom for most of the season....and it still didn't matter. If he was 28, this would be fine. But he wasn't/isn't.

i don’t remember disagreeing with that.

i will say though, i don’t support or endorse posters whose only schtick is to pop in here to complain and never acknowledge anything good about the team or participate in the good vibes when things are going well so it’s possible some posting got mixed up in a response to that.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Help me square how you say the above in this thread regarding Markstrom, but disagreed (at least in part) with my post in the GDT. This is literally what Markstrom is. Like, did folks expect him to be some elite consistent Vezina caliber goalie? That's not what he was/is. I don't understand. 3 of the preceding 4 years he was a streaky .900 sv% guy, known for disproportionately letting in early goals and laughable softies, yet good vs high danger. And when he's in the zone, he's fantastic. This has been his shtick for years.

No one expected him to turn into Vanecek of 2023-2024 when this team was spotting a 3 goal lead in Carolina especially with how he played early on in the series. He gave up softies early on in the series too and still limited the damage

 

[BostonDevil]

we didn’t need him to be perfect, we needed him to be even .800 through the first 10 minutes of the 2nd period

I agree that it was a terrible stretch but if we want to slice the game up like that I will give you the first OT

Actually he stopped every shot that didn't go in and allowed a goal on every shot that they scored on

Not really defending him but I really think the forward group is garbage (outside of a few players) and that is the biggest contributor to the teams problems.

 

[Nocashstyle]

Mercer is fine depth and the kind of guy you want in your bottom 6. The issue is he's being forced way too high in the lineup. You can trade him but I definitely agree with the notion that he is not going to return a piece that is any more valuable to us.

That said I get why people think the grass is greener. Just like we thought Cotter was some stud we stole from Vegas.

But at the end of the day, Cotter still ended up being a way more useful player than Holtz

 

[Edmonton East]

The margin for error was very low in this series. I thought we largely played well and were competitive in this series outside of Game 1. We lost along the margins - depth, special teams, and inconsistency killed us.

That being said, the bones of this thing are solid. This isn't like Ruff's team, which had FAR more talent but looked like a peewee team up against Carolina. We belonged on the same ice as them. Games 2-5 were all one goal game not counting ENGs. Again, very slim margin for error but if a couple of bounces go our way we would still be playing right now.

Okay, but that 2022/23 Carolina team was wayyyyyyyyyyy better than this year's team. Soooo...

Let's be real, the Devs were screwed with injuries, but they played garbage gimmicky hockey for most of the series. Flip the puck out on repeat. Desperate clears or dump-ins with no forecheck. It is what it is. They were still very overmatched by a materially worse Canes' team. Can't condemn Keefe for the predictably trash forward depth Fitz gave him, but idk why we'd sing his or the team's praises either. TBD.

 

[Devils731]

I agree that it was a terrible stretch but if we want to slice the game up like that I will give you the first OT

Actually he stopped every shot that didn't go in and allowed a goal on every shot that they scored on

Not really defending him but I really think the forward group is garbage (outside of a few players) and that is the biggest contributor to the teams problems.

Expected goals is a flawed stat, especially on a game by game basis but here is the last game from Naturalstattrick.

Carolina got 5 goals on 6.09 expected.

Devils got 4 goals on 2.91 expected.

Overtime the expected goals were 1.96 to 0.12 for Carolina.

So Markstrom had a shitty stretch but overall had a fine enough game. Arguably a better game than the other goalie.

Devils looked exhausted and couldn’t generate anything after a certain point in the game and that’s a team issue; which has pretty justifiable reasons.

 

[Edmonton East]

No one expected him to turn into Vanecek of 2023-2024 when this team was spotting a 3 goal lead in Carolina especially with how he played early on in the series. He gave up softies early on in the series too and still limited the damage

Okay, well again, that's on folks for having unrealistic expectations of what Markstrom is and isn't....as pointed out at time of acquisition and now. Also unsure about how he didn't "limit the damage" in the final game as well considering he played his balls off for the final 40.

 

[TrufleShufle]

Trading Mercer for some lateral or slight upgrade would be a mistake.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Okay, well again, that's on folks for having unrealistic expectations of what Markstrom is and isn't....as pointed out at time of acquisition and now. Also unsure about how he didn't "limit the damage" in the final game as well considering he played his balls off for the final 40.

Because the first 3 goals were all weak

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

The thing is, every year Fitz has been the GM, we go into the offseason with obvious needs and he addresses them. Does he overpay to fill those needs? Usually. Does he always find the perfect fit? No. But it's clear to everyone with a functioning brain that we need a deeper forward group and I'm confident that we will get some good additions. Plus, there really isn't room for much improvement at D and G either, at least nothing is obviously available that would be cheap enough to be worth it.

He started with a decent stockpile though and he's running out of trade chips. He also fills holes by then creating new ones / hurting the team's ceiling, e.g. the defense is better at preventing goals but now struggles to generate offense. There's now clear deadweight from some of his moves holding the roster back that needs to be addressed.

He will go into the offseason trying to save his job which is a recipe for disaster. He should go, give someone else the reigns and some breathing room (seems likely to be Broduer and I'm ok with that).

 

[Call Me Al]

I agree that it was a terrible stretch but if we want to slice the game up like that I will give you the first OT

Actually he stopped every shot that didn't go in and allowed a goal on every shot that they scored on

Not really defending him but I really think the forward group is garbage (outside of a few players) and that is the biggest contributor to the teams problems.

i agree the forward group is garbage and said as much in another post. but the context here is that we went all in for this guy, and gave up solid pieces for an unimpressive result. he should be held to a high standard and didn’t meet it, in my opinion

 

[theoptimist]

The future is bright

 

[theoptimist]

Another prospect being slotted in the top 6?

We want to miss the playoffs next season? Keep your Johnson in your pants. He’s a bottom 6 guy until proven otherwise.

 

[Edmonton East]

i don’t remember disagreeing with that.

i will say though, i don’t support or endorse posters whose only schtick is to pop in here to complain and never acknowledge anything good about the team or participate in the good vibes when things are going well so it’s possible some posting got mixed up in a response to that.

Uhhh so attack me for no reason because you posted contradictory opinions and I asked for clarification?

This was literally the convo last night. I said:
Yea I mean no one really argued Markstrom wasn't gonna be an upgrade this year. The argument was it was an overpay that should only be made by a team set to seriously contend immediately considering his age/asset value sent. The issue of course is this roster was never going to seriously contend this season, even with Jack. If you make the Markstrom move, you need to be prepared to throw your chips in the middle for a high-end 3C at a minimum before the season starts as well. No half measures. If you can't materially improved the C depth because of silly contracts or whatever reason(s), then you don't overpay for a 35 year old goalie.

A mid 1st and cost controlled giant #4 dman still not in his prime was a general overpay given the goalie market values. Then consider the actual situation for the Devs and it really didn't make sense. Devs got near realistic best case performance out of Markstrom for most of the season....and it still didn't matter. If he was 28, this would be fine. But he wasn't/isn't.

You quoted and replied:
I disagree we overpaid for Markstrom. Bahl has done shit this year and our D was strong. The 2025 pick hasn’t been made yet and it isn’t a high one. We needed to stabilize the goalie position and we did. I don’t consider we gave up much to fix the biggest problem we had for several preceding years. Markstrom may have won like the 2d most games of any goalie in the league, despite missing some time after a Boston guy crunched him. The price we paid in this trade was not high, nor was it a factor in how we played this year. Give us Bahl and the pick back and we aren’t any better in 2024-25 and take away Markstrom and we are a lot worse.

Yet today you are dragging Markstrom in this thread.

 

[devsfan8]

He started with a decent stockpile though and he's running out of trade chips. He also fills holes by then creating new ones / hurting the team's ceiling, e.g. the defense is better at preventing goals but now struggles to generate offense. There's now clear deadweight from some of his moves holding the roster back that needs to be addressed.

He will go into the offseason trying to save his job which is a recipe for disaster. He should go, give someone else the reigns and some breathing room (seems likely to be Broduer and I'm ok with that).

Save his job? You are assuming his job is in danger. Everyone is so gung ho about firing Fitz yet they never actually give NAMES of someone who can do a better job. We made the playoffs 2 our of 3 years. The goal was to make the playoffs. Going in to the season we were in the playoff lock category. Not a cup contender yet.

Everyone complains he didn't land the "big name" during he deadline hence maing it a failed deadline. Yet the same people complaining CANNOT name a SINGLE move any team made that actually HELPED their respective team WIN this season. And i do not buy this BS that we need a top 6 forward. I dont buy it. We need depth and a deeper lineup. Too top heavy.

HE has built a solid defsense. HE added Markstrom and he addressed needed depth this past offseason, but obvikously we needed more. As far as I am concerned this is NOT a overhaul or a DISASTER situation IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. Fitz is safe and Keefe, with this track record of making the playoffs is safe.

I do not dispute the teams inconsistencies the last half of the season. We need to add some competent depth this off season.

I like the top two lines and the 4th line. We need a 3rd line:.

Bratt-Hughes-Mercer
Palat-HIschier-Meier

Cotter-Glass-Noesen

Gritsyuk will be in the picture also.

Gimme some COMPETENT depth guys who play with energy and have heart and make up for the lack of depth prioduction this summer.

As for the D, IN MY MIND, Dumolin and Pesce is our top pairing next season. Dumolin has become a priority. And I say that..Not caring if we have FIVE or just two left handed D men. Anyone who can handle 35 minutes a game of playoff hockey. block shots and be a fixture in front of the net, and someone who has won in the past needs to be signed TOMORROW. Nemec, gave me and a lot of us the finger for his play this post season. He was an animal and played like he wants to win. Dillon is a good penalty killer and has a No trade clause. Sigenthaler and Kovacevic and Pesce are here long term and Luke is getting a contract this summer. I LOVE DOUGIE and always felt he was clutch and a big part of the team, but I am making him the odd man out. For a team tht thrived on special teams played all season ,when it mattered most we did BUPKIS. And Dougie is in my doghouse. Perhaps i do make him the odd man out this summer. Id expect trades with one or more of our D men to add some forward help and not so much free agency.