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

[devilsfan950003]

Haula is going to be here next year and finish out his contract. He was really bad for most of the season trying to play through an injury but seeing him down the stretch he looked much better and his skating was night and day. We're in no position to be bailing on a 3/4 C that can move around the lineup.

Keep Haula as their 4C. Upgrade that 3C. I don't think Glass is a 3C. If they play Haula as a 4th line winger, Glass could be their 4C.

 

[Ekiru]

Injury excuses for Haula every year? Those literally weren’t a thing in either of his first 2 years and he was good.

Hes has one healthy year; the year we went to the playoffs after the great regular season he was supposedly hurt near the end of the Rangers series

If everyone is gun-ho to keep this guy around, so be it. Doubt were getting a 3C then. But if thats what everyone wants...

Surely he will be better the.. fourth time around

 

[Ekiru]

Haula is going to be here next year and finish out his contract. He was really bad for most of the season trying to play through an injury but seeing him down the stretch he looked much better and his skating was night and day. We're in no position to be bailing on a 3/4 C that can move around the lineup.

I cant have watched the same playoff series then; Haula was the worst one on the team. Two more minutes a game, with Bratt and Mercer, at ES than 22-23 and he put up a single point

Does Haula have nudes I dont know about? Is he hung? Or are we talking about the end of last season, 23-24?

 

[Monsieur Verdoux]

There is nothing strong, physical or aggressive about Haula. Not sure who you’ve been watching. He doesn’t mind going into the corners and getting in battles but he’s not notably effective at it in any way.

He is aggressive in taking unnecessary penalties.

 

[Ekiru]

Haula has to be gone and at least one of Hamilton or Palat have to be gone

I don't care how, get it done

Apparently going over a third of the season pointless was just an injury, and Im supposed to bet the 3C spot on that next year...

 

[theoptimist]

Time for me to rev back up the Pius Suter train. Over the 2 years he was in Vancouver that he should’ve been here instead he was T145 in 5v5 P/60 with 1.7. Just below his fellow Swiss Timo at 1.72. He was T48 in 5v5 G/60 at 0.95. A bit above fellow Swiss Timo and Fiala both at 0.85 (McDavid also coincidentally lol).

Suter’s pretty picture perfect 3C for us to me. He’s elite defensively and on the PK. He produces well for a 3C. He scores goals and finishes very well for a 3C. Also the added bonus of Swiss camaraderie. If we were to add a top 6 guy as well to pair with Jack and ran a 3rd line of Bratt-Suter-Mercer I think they’d absolutely feast.

The only drawback to Suter I could see is maybe he’s priced himself away from us because of how good he was last year.

View attachment 1028750

Timo-Nico-Noesen
Haula-Jack-UFA/trade
Bratt-Suter-Mercer/Gritsyuk
Cotter-Glass-Gritsyuk/Mercer
Tatar-Dowling-Lazar

That’s a good line. And the perfect winger for Jack is Jared McCaan. No Palat, Hamilton in order to make this work.

Hughes-Pesce
Siegenthaler-Nemec
Dumolin-UFA (later Kovacevic)
Dillion

Markstrom
Allen

 

[JK3]

It's not that everyone wants to keep Haula around, it's just a reality, he doesn't make much and is versatile. If he's healthy there's no issue. I don't know why everyone has a raging hard on over him, there's waaaaaaaaay bigger fish to fry.

On the other hand Palat and Dougie are pretty much cooked. I'm a little torn on Dougie cause he did look ok when he came back but those two guys are eating a ton of cap space.

We've heard about how easy it is to shed these contracts so we'll see. This team is kinda f***ed, it's amazing how quick it went from 0-60 as far as being capped out. Does Fitz have the good will, cred with and smarts (probably not) to pull it off. Good luck dumping Palat and Dougie boozeface.

 

[My3Sons]

Timo-Nico-Noesen
Haula-Jack-UFA/trade
Bratt-Suter-Mercer/Gritsyuk
Cotter-Glass-Gritsyuk/Mercer
Tatar-Dowling-Lazar

That’s a good line. And the perfect winger for Jack is Jared McCaan. No Palat, Hamilton in order to make this work.

Hughes-Pesce
Siegenthaler-Nemec
Dumolin-UFA (later Kovacevic)
Dillion

Markstrom
Allen

The Suter ship has sailed I think. Once the guy has already broken out and hits UFA it’s too late. The trick is to find that guy before he explodes like StL did with Holloway. Suter will get too much money and term.

 

[Bleedred]

He is aggressive in taking unnecessary penalties.

The hilarious thing is that during his 28 game pointless streak he hardly had any PIMs over those 28 games either. At least not nearly to the level he did before the pointless streak started.

It was kind of funny how he couldn't even manage to get his name on the game sheet at all for those 28 games.

 

[Triumph]

One thing that drives me nuts about talking about a short series that your team lost is that chances are, forward X had a bad series offensively

The problem with getting rid of Haula, while I support it intellectually, it is going to be really hard to upgrade his spot paying 2025-26 money for a player signed under the salary cap constraints of the summer of 2023.

 

[Forge]

Apparently going over a third of the season pointless was just an injury, and Im supposed to bet the 3C spot on that next year...

I don't believe anyone actually wants Haula to be the 3c. But having him as the 4c is fine.

I don't think this team has a 3c on the roster right now. Haula / Glass would basically be the fallback emergency option if they can't improve it.

 

[Ekiru]

I don't believe anyone actually wants Haula to be the 3c. But having him as the 4c is fine.

I don't think this team has a 3c on the roster right now. Haula / Glass would basically be the fallback emergency option if they can't improve it.

Thats the exact issue; keeping Haula as a 4C simply isnt realistic. We cannot afford it; not unless 3C is the best upgrade we get

Not to mention if we cant move Haula (which some feel), you cant move Dougie who has term at 9m

So thats 9m we arent getting from Dougie to Luke already... where is the money to push Haula down if we arent running the exact same forward group plus a new 3C?

 

[Hisch13r]

The Suter ship has sailed I think. Once the guy has already broken out and hits UFA it’s too late. The trick is to find that guy before he explodes like StL did with Holloway. Suter will get too much money and term.

I’m not going to say it’s done until we see what he’s actually looking at. I think it’s possible his deal is reasonable enough.

 

[Forge]

Thats the exact issue; keeping Haula as a 4C simply isnt realistic. We cannot afford it; not unless 3C is the best upgrade we get

Not to mention if we cant move Haula (which some feel), you cant move Dougie who has term at 9m

So thats 9m we arent getting from Dougie to Luke already... where is the money to push Haula down if we arent running the exact same forward group plus a new 3C?

We are at the point where a 4c is going to make about 3 million.

And we don't really have anyone who can come up and take that spot on a minimum deal. I'm not really keen on having Dowling as a 4c all year.

It'll be Haula or Glass with an added 3c, or it'll be Haula / Glass as 3c / 4c

 

[Ekiru]

We are at the point where a 4c is going to make about 3 million.

And we don't really have anyone who can come up and take that spot on a minimum deal. I'm not really keen on having Dowling as a 4c all year.

It'll be Haula or Glass with an added 3c, or it'll be Haula / Glass as 3c / 4c

I pray for Devils' fans sanity if we enter next year with one forward upgrade lol. Right or wrong, Fitzgerald will be betting a lot on the season

Then again Im convinced Fitzgerald is a lock for his job. You dont give President to a guy you intend to let go anytime soon, especially when the next GM is likely a first-timer (and a trailblazing woman)

 

[Hisch13r]

I don't believe anyone actually wants Haula to be the 3c. But having him as the 4c is fine.

I don't think this team has a 3c on the roster right now. Haula / Glass would basically be the fallback emergency option if they can't improve it.

Getting a good 3C, keeping Glass for 4C, having Haula/Mercer as bottom 6 wings would be a world of difference from where we were last year. We only had 3 real centers, a winger playing 4C, and Mercer as the only wing that could slide over. So brutal.

 

[Ekiru]

Getting a good 3C, keeping Glass for 4C, having Haula/Mercer as bottom 6 wings would be a world of difference from where we were last year. We only had 3 real centers, a winger playing 4C, and Mercer as the only wing that could slide over. So brutal.

How are we affording that if Dougie or Palat dont move? And if we can move either or, why cant we move Haula as well? We really want to our third line to depend on Haula and Glass..? Where does Mercer fit, the fourth line? Leaving Noesen way out of his depth again in the top-6?

It seems all very unrealistic and more likely, if all three are here next season, itll be Gritsyuk and Glass on the third line with Mercer

 

[Lou is God]

Unfortunately paywall but looks like Brooks is speculating that Quinn here can happen sooner or later and I don't think he's wrong:

Devils and Canucks have incentive to get a Quinn Hughes deal done — sooner rather than later

The eldest Hughes sibling has made it clear he wants to unite with Jack and Luke.

nypost.com

Vancouver is going to realize that if they wait until next year, it's going to be a weaker return.

 

[NJDevs26]

Unfortunately paywall but looks like Brooks is speculating that Quinn here can happen sooner or later and I don't think he's wrong:

Devils and Canucks have incentive to get a Quinn Hughes deal done — sooner rather than later

The eldest Hughes sibling has made it clear he wants to unite with Jack and Luke.

nypost.com

Vancouver is going to realize that if they wait until next year, it's going to be a weaker return.

It doesn’t matter, Canadian teams always try to win now 95% of the time and rarely rebuild until absolutely no other option exists…they won’t move him till they’re forced to.

 

[Devils731]

Unfortunately paywall but looks like Brooks is speculating that Quinn here can happen sooner or later and I don't think he's wrong:

Devils and Canucks have incentive to get a Quinn Hughes deal done — sooner rather than later

The eldest Hughes sibling has made it clear he wants to unite with Jack and Luke.

nypost.com

Vancouver is going to realize that if they wait until next year, it's going to be a weaker return.

If you’re interested, it seems the whole article loads before the paywall so I just took screenshots.

It says nothing.

 

[JK3]

The cap going up is good I guess but don't get your hopes up for a ton of relief. It will be great for sure with existing contracts and it's great that we have three of our top guys locked for now. Unfortunately that will be completely made irrelevant with the new contracts bumping up pay for mid/trash players.

 

[Lou is God]

It doesn’t matter, Canadian teams always try to win now 95% of the time and rarely rebuild until absolutely no other option exists…they won’t move him till they’re forced to.

Canadians seem to be pulling off a nice rebuild. Could be the model to follow for others.

 

[Lou is God]

If you’re interested, it seems the whole article loads before the paywall so I just took screenshots.

It says nothing.

View attachment 1028885View attachment 1028886

Most of Brooks articles are him trying to start speculation, its absolutely his MO.

 

[Guttersniped]

Better chance he's just old and bad. Injuries may be why he went 28 straight games without a point, but I think a lot of was because he's BAD now. And he'll probably be bad next year.

Yeah, there's some luck involved in 28 games without a point for a player like him, but I think a lot of what we're seeing is just 34 year old player problems. Same with Palat.

34/35 is OLD in this league. I wouldn't expect much of anything from players that age or older not named Crosby or Ovechkin.

Even good ole Taylor Hall is about that age (Almost) and not as good anymore. And somehow he makes about half of Palat next year and about the same as Haula lol.

Giving Haula a 3 year deal was probably a mistake from the start.

High ankle sprains are brutal for hockey players, it can hamper them for months after they return.

 

[Billdo]

If you’re interested, it seems the whole article loads before the paywall so I just took screenshots.

It says nothing.

View attachment 1028885View attachment 1028886

They're really going to be backed into a bad spot as far as a return for Quinn. It's like what happened with the Red Sox and Mookie Betts. He made it known he didn't want to sign and would only sign with LA. That's why the return was horrific for one of the best players in baseball. Vancouver is look at a really insignificant return because Nj has no reason to pay a premium when he'd basically be free, aside from contract, in two years.