GDT: Devils @ Sabres - 7:00 PM - MSG

[Mgd31]

From the desk of njdevil26

I would like to retract all statements I've made about giving Travis Green a chance to fill the coaching vacancy at the end of the season.

Emergency podcast today

 

[Call Me Al]

The poll is still open. It was 50/50 right before the game yesterday (I think 25 votes for either). This morning, it seems most people prefer to miss the playoffs. Thank you for the poll.

i think it’s more accurate to say most people want green gone but six of one, half a dozen…

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

The first thing the new coach needs to do is remove Luke from PP1. The fact they haven’t tried Nemec is wild. At least Dougie will be back next year.

I think Luke is starting to look good again on PP1. Can’t argue with most of that post, but if there’s one major problem on the PP, it’s the other Hughes. He can’t shoot, stick handle with any consistency, or win a puck battle in his diminished state.

 

[Call Me Al]

yeah i think luke is fine on pp1 for now, and they’ve been producing so whatever.

jack has games where he looks great and then games where he’s clearly diminished. he had a couple dominant shifts last night but that 5v3 play was embarrassing and could have butterfly-effect-cost-us-the-season. literally killed all the momentum from the last 3 games with that one terrible and unnecessary effort

 

[Homedresser]

Why?

They sure were quick to fire Shero out of nowhere when no one expected it.

Shero was fired due to a salary esclator clause in his contract that was due to kick in.

 

[NJDevs26]

Except he's completely right in that quote, there's next to no excuse for this team to be losing to teams consistently below you in the standings. I don't think the Sabres are as bad as they are this year, a lot of it has to do with the regression offensively that most people correctly predicted but being up 2-0 and utterly look like world beaters in the first and then just fizzling out in the 2nd/3rd is a f***ing atrocity.

Well lumping in the Sabres with other cream of the crap teams like Anaheim, Columbus, Arizona, San Jose, etc we've lost to is probably a bit unfair. But you still have to win that game against an out-of-form team playing its backup goalie, being spotted two early goals.

 

[Homedresser]

Except he's completely right in that quote, there's next to no excuse for this team to be losing to teams consistently below you in the standings. I don't think the Sabres are as bad as they are this year, a lot of it has to do with the regression offensively that most people correctly predicted but being up 2-0 and utterly look like world beaters in the first and then just fizzling out in the 2nd/3rd is a f***ing atrocity.

Question to Nico, what exactly has this team accomplished to make you feel that way? This team has accomplished nothing. There is no reason at all for them to believe they are too good to be beaten by anyone in this league.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Well lumping in the Sabres with other cream of the crap teams like Anaheim, Columbus, Arizona, San Jose, etc we've lost to is probably a bit unfair. But you still have to win that game against an out-of-form team playing its backup goalie, being spotted two early goals.

Which is what I said exactly in my post, lol.

 

[Bleedred]

Shero was fired due to a salary esclator clause in his contract that was due to kick in.

How do you know this? I’ve never heard this before.

So they fired him because they didn’t wanna pay him more? But they still had to pay him the original amount even if they fired him.

So they fired him so they didn’t have to pay him more the next year, while still having to pay the rest of his contract until it ended, and then probably having to pay someone else (Fitz) the difference between Shero’s escalation in salary anyway?

From the desk of njdevil26

I would like to retract all statements I've made about giving Travis Green a chance to fill the coaching vacancy at the end of the season.

I forgive you!

But I’m somewhat bummed that I can’t post “there are people here who actually support Green returning?!” Anymore.

Until Travis Green’s HF boards account starts posting!

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

I think Luke is starting to look good again on PP1. Can’t argue with most of that post, but if there’s one major problem on the PP, it’s the other Hughes. He can’t shoot, stick handle with any consistency, or win a puck battle in his diminished state.

No one on the half boards or point shoots on their powerplay unless they have an A+ chance, none of it was more evident than on the 5 on 3. Sometimes I wish they had Carolina's mentality of tossing pucks from every angle at net even if it's not effective strategy long term with this roster.

 

[NJDevs26]

How do you know this? I’ve never heard this before.

So they fired him because they didn’t wanna pay him more? But they still had to pay him the original amount even if they fired him.

So they fired him so they didn’t have to pay him more the next year, while still having to pay the rest of his contract until it ended, and then probably having to pay someone else (Fitz) the difference between Shero’s escalation in salary anyway?


I forgive you!

But I’m somewhat bummed that I can’t post “there are people here who actually support Green returning?!” Anymore.

Until Travis Green’s HF boards account starts posting!

Yeah signing a guy to an extension only to fire him months later is an odd way to save money lol

The power struggle and clash over autonomy makes a lot more sense as a theory. I am a bit surprised Shero hasn’t gotten an act three since he’s a ‘Cup winning’ GM though his replacement winning two straight in Pittsburgh probably took some shine off that, not to mention his replacement here doing an unarguably better job, this year aside

 

[Bleedred]

The team has played considerably worse (outside of goal) since Green took over.

I’m not sure if actual goals per game have went down, but I’m sure the expected goals and shots on goal have went down.

We’ve had a couple of goal explosion games since he took over that probably skew the goals scored toward our season averages. Like the Dallas, Pittsburgh and Toronto games.

I remember when Ruff was still here this year that I constantly pointed out how the rush game looked considerably weaker and compromised as opposed to what it was last year.

Now it looks basically non-existent since he completely took over.

Does the system he runs make it easier for the goalies to make saves? Probably marginally, but it’s absolutely not the difference in the drastic rise in save percentages since he took over. That’s a combination between the two goalies he’s had being extreme upgrades over nervous breakdown mode Vitek and the kids, as well as small sample size. Even Allen is hotter right now than he normally plays. And I think that’s little thanks to Travis Green and the system he runs.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

No one on the half boards or point shoots on their powerplay unless they have an A+ chance, none of it was more evident than on the 5 on 3. Sometimes I wish they had Carolina's mentality of tossing pucks from every angle at net even if it's not effective strategy long term with this roster.

It was nice to have gunslinger Dougie who’s never afraid to blast it from anywhere. We miss him so badly.

 

[Bleedred]

86 point pace under Ruff with unforgivably bad goaltending.

76 point pace under Green and if I calculated this right I think we have a .913% in 13 games that he’s coached. I think it goes to a .917% if you take out the only game Schmid has played, which was 4 goal on 30 shots against the Panthers.

So we’re pacing for under 76-82 points with goaltending on par with prime Cory (adjusted for era and declining save percentages) and you know what else? That’s an eerily similar point total to his Vancouver teams, while Markstrom was performing at a similar clip. 6-7-0 is a small sample size still, but its pacing for the same record the Canucks had during Markstrom’s .912% seasons. 6-7-0 with .913% goaltending. Get the f*** outta here.

The Canucks went 8-15-2 before he was fired in 21-22 and still had .909% goaltending (above league average) in that span. That’s a joke. Usually when you have that kind of record it comes with an .875%-.885% save percentage lol.

Green is one of the worst head coaches of the last decade and I’ve been saying this since before he was even hired by us in any capacity.

He’s a dumb, smooth talking, hard working when he was playing, good ole’ British Columbia boy, which is probably why he was renowned. But he’s a developmental coach at the very best. You can’t compete with him.

 

[JimEIV]

@DVision44

Sorry I didn't respond to you after the Leafs game I have been traveling and just saw your comment last night....What was it about goaltending you saying?

It's clear that they would have more points right now?

 

[JimEIV]

You guys rearrange the narrative period by period...

Goaltending, coaching, power play ...back to goaltending....no scoring has dried up...back to goaltending....back to coaching...

How does that razor thing go...the simplest is almost always correct...

And the simplest answer is this team sucks.

 

[Bleedred]

LOL @ the results change in the poll since the game ended.

It went from better than 50% of the votes being make the playoffs and keep Green to 59.2% votes to miss the playoffs and fire Green.

Pretty obvious a lot of votes changes. And I haven’t even changed my vote yet.

Now I did and we’re now at a 60.6% in favor of missing the playoffs and firing Green lol.

You guys rearrange the narrative period by period...

Goaltending, coaching, power play ...back to goaltending....no scoring has dried up...back to goaltending....back to coaching...

How does that razor thing go...the simplest is almost always correct...

And the simplest answer is this team sucks.

It was performing decently with Ruff, outside of dreadfully bad goaltending.

Now it’s performing DREADFULLY under Green with pretty solid goaltending.

As much as we’ve upgraded in goalies, we’ve downgraded even more in coaches.

 

[JimEIV]

LOL @ the results change in the poll since the game ended.

It went from better than 50% of the votes being make the playoffs and keep Green to 59.2% votes to miss the playoffs and fire Green.

Pretty obvious a lot of votes changes. And I haven’t even changed my vote yet.

Now I did and we’re now at a 60.6% in favor of missing the playoffs and firing Green lol.


It was performing decently with Ruff, outside of dreadfully bad goaltending.

Now it’s performing DREADFULLY under Green with pretty solid goaltending.

As much as we’ve upgraded in goalies, we’ve downgraded even more in coaches.

It's a soft easy to play against team with bad defense.

We can go through a million abstractions and and dissect numbers until there's no more numbers to dissect and it all comes down to this is a bad team no matter how you slice it.

 

[Bleedred]

The only player that’s really playing better under Green than Ruff is Timo.

And there’s probably two reasons for that. He’s now healthier/market correcting after underachieving for quite a bit of the season. He’s progressing somewhat to his mean. Probably a lot of that is getting healthier.

And for some reason, which I’m not completely sure why, it seemed like he didn’t like Lindy or maybe they possibly didn’t get along. I’m not sure. People have speculated that Nico didn’t seem too big on Lindy, but Timo seemed even more meh on him and was not at all somber or disappointed in the interview after his firing, like Jack and especially Bratt were. And even less than Nico.

The two goalies who’ve never even met Ruff in their entire lives do not count. They didn’t play a second under him. They weren’t here until over a week after he was fired.

 

[Bleedred]

It's a soft easy to play against team with bad defense.

We can go through a million abstractions and and dissect numbers until there's no more numbers to dissect and it all comes down to this is a bad team no matter how you slice it.

Get a coach that knows what he’s doing in here and a team that’s somewhat healthier than this year’s team, including one goalie upgrade and a shake up of the bottom 6 and we’re good again.

I was calling for Lindy’s firing too (NEVER for Green! And not until the end of the year) but I said countless times before his firing that while I think he shouldn’t be here next year, I don’t think he can FUBAR our team next year if we stay healthier than we did this year and with a goalie that wasn’t nutcase Vitek having a nervous breakdown/two kids that aren’t NHL caliber.

I honestly think this team probably has 2 more wins right now if Ruff wasn’t fired. It wouldn’t have been enough to be in a playoff spot right now, but that damage was done before Ruff was fired.

I think we may have 4-5 more points right now under Ruff, but maybe not, because the team did look like they quit on him at the end there. So maybe we wouldn’t have.

 

[ZYXWVUT]

The way that all played out last night just took my feelings on the team to a whole new level. Although I wasn’t a “believer” in the whole playoff push idea, it was still theoretically a critical game against a team who had just gotten thumped the other night. You jump out to a 2-0 lead on them and they are boo’d after the first period and you let them up off the mat? So soft and pathetic. Disgusting really. There needs to be a few fairly substantial changes this summer to the roster construction. And it’s on the GM to fix it. And get the coach right too, but a lot of this is on the players, whether it’s been ruff or green behind the bench.

 

[HoliksGhost]

Top 3 worse loss of the season?

 

[JimEIV]

Get a coach that knows what he’s doing in here and a team that’s somewhat healthier than this year’s team, including one goalie upgrade and a shake up of the bottom 6 and we’re good again.

I was calling for Lindy’s firing too (NEVER for Green! And not until the end of the year) but I said countless times before his firing that while I think he shouldn’t be here next year, I don’t think he can FUBAR our team next year if we stay healthier than we did this year and with a goalie that wasn’t nutcase Vitek having a nervous breakdown/two kids that aren’t NHL caliber.

I honestly think this team probably has 2 more wins right now if Ruff wasn’t fired. It wouldn’t have been enough to be in a playoff spot right now, but that damage was done before Ruff was fired.

I think we may have 4-5 more points right now under Ruff, but maybe not, because the team did look like they quit on him at the end there. So maybe we wouldn’t have.

What difference would it make if we had 4/5 more points and we're in that last WC spot? I mean this team would get utterly destroyed in playoff hockey. They weren't built for it last year and we're worse this year.

They can't score without playing like the 80's oilers with no defense and they're to small and soft with a mistake prone defense to grind anything out or play a tight game.

Way beyond coaching or goaltending this team is flawed and needs to be reworked.

 

[Bleedred]

What difference would it make if we had 4/5 more points and we're in that last WC spot? I mean this team would get utterly destroyed in playoff hockey. They weren't built for it last year and we're worse this year.

They can't score without playing like the 80's oilers with no defense and they're to small and soft with a mistake prone defense to grind anything out or play a tight game.

Way beyond coaching or goaltending this team is flawed and needs to be reworked.

We don’t even play like the 80s Oilers anymore. That was last year.

And it was fun. Now we have whatever we saw last night and what we’ve been seeing all of this year(remember who ran the forwards all year) which has gotten even worse since the deputy became the sheriff.

 

[Devilsfan992]

Top 3 worse loss of the season?

Top 1. Just a horrible horrible loss.