Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2022-23 season thread part III

[glenwo2]

Kane has a cap hit of 10.5m, so yeah, it doesn’t make much sense.

Devils are 21-4-1. It doesn't make much sense. (had to do it, gutter. )

 

[Guttersniped]

I want Kane in NJ for 2 reasons.

It could help the PP and it would make the rest of the league insane.

Not sure which is better.

There are picks and prospects that will never see NJ who could be offered up. Don’t be scared.

Long term would be Meier though


That hit goes down as the season wears on and Chicago can retain some too. Money won’t be a problem if there’s a deal to be had.

Paying a king’s ransom for Kane isn’t what I’m interested in, I’m assuming Fitz will do something slicker.

 

[glenwo2]

Paying a king’s ransom for Kane isn’t what I’m interested in, I’m assuming Fitz will do something slicker.

Watch out for Fitz carrying a can of oil....."Something slicker" OUTTA NOWHERE LIKE AN R...K...O!!!


(okay I'll shut up now. I'm bored)

 

[Bcap88]

Man if Vitek was signed long term I'd get a jersey right now. But after my Parise jersey betrayed me it's hard to bite the bullet just yet

Yea my kovalchuk jersey betrayed me lol I strictly stick to t shirt jerseys now

 

[Classic Devil]

Man if Vitek was signed long term I'd get a jersey right now. But after my Parise jersey betrayed me it's hard to bite the bullet just yet

I haven't gotten a Devils jersey since my Rafalski, which was twenty years ago now (but still is in great shape). If the team brings back a jersey that looks like a Devils' jersey should look (although maybe I'd consider our 80s retro), I'll look into getting a Hughes, Nemec, or Hamilton jersey.

 

[Guttersniped]

I want Kane in NJ for 2 reasons.

It could help the PP and it would make the rest of the league insane.

Not sure which is better.

There are picks and prospects that will never see NJ who could be offered up. Don’t be scared.

Long term would be Meier though


That hit goes down as the season wears on and Chicago can retain some too. Money won’t be a problem if there’s a deal to be had.

A player’s cap hit never goes down.

The reason teams can afford players around the TDL is they keep accruing cap space by being under the cap but we aren’t doing that because we’re using LTIR.

The cap space we have now is the cap space we’ll always have, unless someone else ends up on the LTIR.

We don’t have much flexibility at all for a TDL addition, which is another reason not to probably not expect one.

 

[Stephen Gionta]

I do wonder what San Jose would do if they hold onto Meier this season and can't come to an agreement with him this offseason? They're already over the cap this season as they're utilizing LTIR and only Bonino ($2.05M) and Reimer ($2.25M) are coming off the books, so I guess that's enough to absorb Meier's $4M increase, though they'd also have to fill those spots. Just seems like it would be rather tight with him on the roster at a $10M cap hit next season (unless something drastic like Karlsson being traded happens), but I suppose it would still be better to hold onto him and trade him next season at 50% retention than to just let him walk for nothing.

Yes and no, I think it would be foolish to go all in so early on this teams trajectory. The team is deep, but there’s still another four years, in my opinion, of this team’s window while Hischier, Marino, and Siegenthaler are on their respective deals.

I would want to be buyers, but significant assets shouldn’t be moved unless there is short and long term impact. I think bolstering the depth with some of our “extra prospects” like Walsh and late round picks is a smarter play this year.

I’m also fully on board with keeping Graves if you can sign him to a deal that still allows you flexibility for when Hughes/Nemec/Muk/etc. need their next deals. Something around 4x4 would be solid. Ensures you have one solid option for the kids to be paired with for the foreseeable future.

As @Unknown Caller mentioned previously - we shouldn't be viewing this season as "playing with house money"

We're about to lose potentially two huge pieces of our defense core in Severson and Graves. Hischier is 23, Bratt is 24. Hughes is 21, Dougie is 29, Palat is 31 .... Let's freakin go for the cup this year.

Now that doesn't mean give up 1st round picks and high end prospects for a rental, but if you can add a youngish player that will remain with the team for years, do it! If you can add Timo Meier at the right pirce, do it!

Let's aim for the Stanley Cup THIS YEAR.

A player’s cap hit never goes down.

The reason teams can afford players around the TDL is they keep accruing cap space by being under the cap but we aren’t doing that because we’re using LTIR.

The cap space we have now is the cap space we’ll always have, unless someone else ends up on the LTIR.

We don’t have much flexibility at all for a TDL addition, which is another reason not to probably not expect one.

Sending Johnsson and his 3.4 million cap hit but only 750K Salary the other way in any potential trade would be enough to facilitate the trade. We also have Bernier to send.

We have plenty of flexibilty to do pretty much whatever we want at the deadline.

 

[Zippy316]

As @Unknown Caller mentioned previously - we shouldn't be viewing this season as "playing with house money"

We're about to lose potentially two huge pieces of our defense core in Severson and Graves. Hischier is 23, Bratt is 24. Hughes is 21, Dougie is 29, Palat is 31 .... Let's freakin go for the cup this year.

Now that doesn't mean give up 1st round picks and high end prospects for a rental, but if you can add a youngish player that will remain with the team for years, do it! If you can add Timo Meier at the right pirce, do it!

Let's aim for the Stanley Cup THIS YEAR.

I don’t think there should be any rush though. This type of mentality is how you end up sending Holtz + 1st for a Patrick Kane that isn’t much of a difference maker to this roster and walks at the end of the year.

Meier is a different story as it’s short and long term. But unless it’s that, I don’t think the Devils should be giving up any prime assets for a player this season. Add some depth for sure in case injuries strike or some of the younger kids struggle, but that’s it for me.

I do agree this team is likely to take a step back at least a year considering we will be losing quality depth in Graves, Severson, Tatar, Haula, and potentially Wood as UFAs. I think the kids will replace their impact, but it’ll likely take a year or two for them to do so.

 

[HBK27]

As @Unknown Caller mentioned previously - we shouldn't be viewing this season as "playing with house money"

We're about to lose potentially two huge pieces of our defense core in Severson and Graves. Hischier is 23, Bratt is 24. Hughes is 21, Dougie is 29, Palat is 31 .... Let's freakin go for the cup this year.

Now that doesn't mean give up 1st round picks and high end prospects for a rental, but if you can add a youngish player that will remain with the team for years, do it! If you can add Timo Meier at the right pirce, do it!

Let's aim for the Stanley Cup THIS YEAR.

I do largely agree with the mentality of not wasting this year just because the goal just coming into the season was to make the playoffs. As bright as the future looks, you never know what's going to happen in future seasons especially since we'll be losing some key vets this offseason, injuries are always a wildcard, etc. I also think the lack of playoff experience is slightly overrated.

I certainly wouldn't be opposed to bringing in Meier with the right deal, assuming we can get him (and really Bratt as well) signed long-term.

Right now, I have a TON of faith in Fitzgerald, so until I see otherwise I'm going to trust him to do what's right for this team both in the long and short term. I am slightly worried what it would take to acquire & extend Meier, but would probably be thrilled if they got him.

 

[HBK27]

I don’t think there should be any rush though. This type of mentality is how you end up sending Holtz + 1st for a Patrick Kane that isn’t much of a difference maker to this roster and walks at the end of the year.

Meier is a different story as it’s short and long term. But unless it’s that, I don’t think the Devils should be giving up any prime assets for a player this season. Add some depth for sure in case injuries strike or some of the younger kids struggle, but that’s it for me.

I do agree this team is likely to take a step back at least a year considering we will be losing quality depth in Graves, Severson, Tatar, Haula, and potentially Wood as UFAs. I think the kids will replace their impact, but it’ll likely take a year or two for them to do so.

If that's the price for Kane, it's an easy no from me. Really, the only interest I have in him is on a relatively cheap deal (trade wise) since he has a full NMC and can essentially dictate where he goes, much like Giroux did last season.

But yeah, even with all that I don't like the thought of going after a pure rental (and Fitz apparently doesn't either), plus it would be rather difficult to work out cap wise as well. Much better off spending assets on Meier instead.

 

[Stephen Gionta]

I don’t think there should be any rush though. This type of mentality is how you end up sending Holtz + 1st for a Patrick Kane that isn’t much of a difference maker to this roster and walks at the end of the year.

Meier is a different story as it’s short and long term. But unless it’s that, I don’t think the Devils should be giving up any prime assets for a player this season. Add some depth for sure in case injuries strike or some of the younger kids struggle, but that’s it for me.

I do agree this team is likely to take a step back at least a year considering we will be losing quality depth in Graves, Severson, Tatar, Haula, and potentially Wood as UFAs. I think the kids will replace their impact, but it’ll likely take a year or two for them to do so.

Did you not read my post

I clearly stated in it - Now that doesn't mean give up 1st round picks and high end prospects for a rental, but if you can add a youngish player that will remain with the team for years, do it! If you can add Timo Meier at the right pirce, do it!

 

[Capt Nico Poo]

Team sucked for basically a decade. The season ticket base has to be decimated. I know I gave up my tickets a couple years ago when I couldn’t even pay people to take my seats to the games I couldn’t go to.

This year we’ve had a sellout against the freaking Coyotes in November and a couple mid-week sellouts already. Going to any weekend game in NJ is more expensive than now than the same ticket in Philly. We’ve even had a pretty sizeable bump in crowds against western conference opponents mid-week. 14,000 on a Thursday in early December against Nashville? That would’ve been a bogus 10k last season with a real attendance of like 6-7k.

The ticket prices have gone x3 after the season start now that the team is good. They could sell out properly if they wanted to. Guess NJD is making good money on the dynamic ticket pricing, since there are so few season tickets out there.

 

[Eggtimer]

Yea my kovalchuk jersey betrayed me lol I strictly stick to t shirt jerseys now

I bought a Kovy jersey as well. At the time , he was under contract for 8283 years so it seemed to be a save bet to buy one . Nope.

 

[Zippy316]

Did you not read my post

I clearly stated in it - Now that doesn't mean give up 1st round picks and high end prospects for a rental, but if you can add a youngish player that will remain with the team for years, do it! If you can add Timo Meier at the right pirce, do it!

I’m just saying that mentality of you need to add a top six player is usually what leads to making foolish decisions. Stick with the process and add smartly.

Personally, I’m also not fully convinced on Meier. I think once Palat returns it kind of eliminates the need for Meier. Zetterlund has provided a similar game and will be very cost effective for the foreseeable future. Plus, acquiring and extending Meier is going to eventually come at the expense of someone whether that is Sharangovich, Mercer, Wood, Zetterlund, etc.

The cost for Meier effectively becomes the assets it costs to acquire, the cap space he takes up on his next contract, and then also remove a forward or two off the roster.

 

[devilsblood]

As @Unknown Caller mentioned previously - we shouldn't be viewing this season as "playing with house money"

We're about to lose potentially two huge pieces of our defense core in Severson and Graves. Hischier is 23, Bratt is 24. Hughes is 21, Dougie is 29, Palat is 31 .... Let's freakin go for the cup this year.

Now that doesn't mean give up 1st round picks and high end prospects for a rental, but if you can add a youngish player that will remain with the team for years, do it! If you can add Timo Meier at the right pirce, do it!

Let's aim for the Stanley Cup THIS YEAR.



Sending Johnsson and his 3.4 million cap hit but only 750K Salary the other way in any potential trade would be enough to facilitate the trade. We also have Bernier to send.

We have plenty of flexibilty to do pretty much whatever we want at the deadline.

But this team is playing so well, I'm not sure where we need to add. Especially since, given how solid we are throughout the lineup, any addition that we hope will improve the team, will have to be a pretty good player, and that player will not come cheap.

 

[NjdevilfanJim]

Just looked at that NHL.com article what a joke....Mercer shouldn't be off table as he can be a big part of Chicago's future like he is NJ'S wtf world does that make any sense...No way would I trade Mercer .... I'd just hang up the phone the minute they mentioned him in a trade....

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I have no interest in mortgaging future assets (aside from mid to late round draft picks) for rentals. If we're making a trade, trade a draft pick for a depth piece or trade for a guy who would be able to be retained or has more term left.

 

[Zippy316]

But this team is playing so well, I'm not sure where we need to add. Especially since, given how solid we are throughout the lineup, any addition that we hope will improve the team, will have to be a pretty good player, and that player will not come cheap.

The only real need I see is that development gap between the NHL guys and bubble guys like Holtz, Johnsson, Bahl, and Okhotiuk.

We don’t really have reliable depth after that. There’s some young players, but I don’t think any of them are at the point where you’d fully be comfortable with them as the next man up in a playoff series.

A bottom six veteran forward and a third pairing RHS defender would be my adds. Just a list of pending UFAs on teams that aren’t 100% in the playoffs:

Nick Holden
Trevor van Riemsdyk
Justin Braun (hard pass)
Jack Johnson (not ideal but he fits style of play)
Dmitry Kulikov
Travis Hamonic
——
Connor Brown
Sean Monahan (skating is probably an impediment here)
Zach Parise (lol)
Conor Sheary
Matt Nieto
Oskar Sundqvist
Zemgus Girgensons

 

[severian]

The ticket prices have gone x3 after the season start now that the team is good. They could sell out properly if they wanted to. Guess NJD is making good money on the dynamic ticket pricing, since there are so few season tickets out there.

It really sucks though if you want to buy any non-weekday game.

 

[My3Sons]

I do wonder what San Jose would do if they hold onto Meier this season and can't come to an agreement with him this offseason? They're already over the cap this season as they're utilizing LTIR and only Bonino ($2.05M) and Reimer ($2.25M) are coming off the books, so I guess that's enough to absorb Meier's $4M increase, though they'd also have to fill those spots. Just seems like it would be rather tight with him on the roster at a $10M cap hit next season (unless something drastic like Karlsson being traded happens), but I suppose it would still be better to hold onto him and trade him next season at 50% retention than to just let him walk for nothing.

If they can't get more than a rental price at the deadline this season, presumably they try to sign him long term and failing that they suck it up and bring him back at the QO and if the team stinks again they move him for the best offer they can get at the TDL? They have limited options and some of it will depend upon whether they want to tank the end of this season and next season as well.

 

[Triumph]

The only real need I see is that development gap between the NHL guys and bubble guys like Holtz, Johnsson, Bahl, and Okhotiuk.

We don’t really have reliable depth after that. There’s some young players, but I don’t think any of them are at the point where you’d fully be comfortable with them as the next man up in a playoff series.

A bottom six veteran forward and a third pairing RHS defender would be my adds. Just a list of pending UFAs on teams that aren’t 100% in the playoffs:

Nick Holden
Trevor van Riemsdyk
Justin Braun (hard pass)
Jack Johnson (not ideal but he fits style of play)
Dmitry Kulikov
Travis Hamonic
——
Connor Brown
Sean Monahan (skating is probably an impediment here)
Zach Parise (lol)
Conor Sheary
Matt Nieto
Oskar Sundqvist
Zemgus Girgensons

I don't like the idea of adding anybody who isn't going to go into the lineup immediately. The Devils went on a lot of Cup runs being awfully shallow up front past their 12th guy and I really don't think it is an issue at forward. Defense is another matter but with Hughes presumably around as well as a lot of guys who've spent time at Utica, I'd live with moving Smith over versus bringing in a bad player for the third pair.

Injuries can make lots of this moot, but yeah I'm not expecting anything at the deadline besides maybe a goalie swap.

 

[Stephen Gionta]

A realistic mock trade for Meier could look like this in my opinion:

Alex Holtz
Nolan Foote
2024 2nd round pick
Jonathan Bernier OR Andreas Johnsson (cap)

Then this is a mock lineup of your healthy team for playoffs.

Meier - Hughes - Mercer
Palat - Hischier - Bratt
Sharangovich - Haula - Tatar
Wood - McLeod - Zetterlund
Bastian, Boqvist

Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Graves - Marino
Smith - Severson
L. Hughes, Bahl, Okhotiuk, Depth Dman acquisition

Vanecek
Blackwood
Schmid

 

[Zippy316]

I don't like the idea of adding anybody who isn't going to go into the lineup immediately. The Devils went on a lot of Cup runs being awfully shallow up front past their 12th guy and I really don't think it is an issue at forward. Defense is another matter but with Hughes presumably around as well as a lot of guys who've spent time at Utica, I'd live with moving Smith over versus bringing in a bad player for the third pair.

Injuries can make lots of this moot, but yeah I'm not expecting anything at the deadline besides maybe a goalie swap.

That’s also fair. Definitely depends on how the season plays out. One long-term injury and it makes sense to add a placeholder.

I do think someone like TvR for a mid-round pick makes a bit of sense. Especially since he’s a guy that has carved out that extra defender role on several teams so far.

For the forwards as I went down to the depth guys it was a lot of hard passes. The names I listed are more third line quality.

 

[TrufleShufle]

A realistic mock trade for Meier could look like this in my opinion:

Alex Holtz
Nolan Foote
2024 2nd round pick
Jonathan Bernier OR Andreas Johnsson (cap)

Then this is a mock lineup of your healthy team for playoffs.

Meier - Hughes - Mercer
Palat - Hischier - Bratt
Sharangovich - Haula - Tatar
Wood - McLeod - Zetterlund
Bastian, Boqvist

Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Graves - Marino
Smith - Severson
L. Hughes, Bahl, Okhotiuk, Depth Dman acquisition

Vanecek
Blackwood
Schmid

That seems like a trade that would come with an extension, what would the extension be?

 

[My3Sons]

A realistic mock trade for Meier could look like this in my opinion:

Alex Holtz
Nolan Foote
2024 2nd round pick
Jonathan Bernier OR Andreas Johnsson (cap)

Then this is a mock lineup of your healthy team for playoffs.

Meier - Hughes - Mercer
Palat - Hischier - Bratt
Sharangovich - Haula - Tatar
Wood - McLeod - Zetterlund
Bastian, Boqvist

Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Graves - Marino
Smith - Severson
L. Hughes, Bahl, Okhotiuk, Depth Dman acquisition

Vanecek
Blackwood
Schmid

I have a tough time moving Holtz, Foote, and a second for a rental. Fiala only returned a first and a good prospect with an extension, I'd hope any Meier trade would be similar.