Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023-24 season begins!

[devilsblood]

I don't think we miss Graves all that much 5 on 5. He wasn't very good last year and was a massive drag in the transition game. The PK misses him, but him not being here alone shouldn't have caused this many PK issues.

We do miss severson so much as we went from having a very good puck moving Dman on our 3rd pair that could spot you 20 minutes on any night...to Brandon Smith who is barely replacement level. That's a big downgrade on top of having to work rookies in. Siegs regressing as bad as he has only makes it worse. It's probably to the point where we need to look at replacing Siegs completely.

The goaltending it goes without saying. This was a league average tandem last year that flirted with being slightly above average. This year it's bottom 3, might be bottom 2 after the Edmonton game. It's really really bad.

Injuries like you said. All the top dudes have missed time, and some are definitely playing with injuries.

Biggest issue to me though is mental stuff. Last year the team not only played with a ton of confidence, it played with great work ethic. We were never getting out worked most nights. We were first on puck battles. Out worked everyone. The only times they weren't doing that were during the major slumps.

That work ethic and confidence is not there this year and that's where you got to start pointing fingers at Ruff.

Xs and Os are important but a coach's main job is being a people manager. Making sure guys aren't slacking or cheating. That they are focused and ready to play. They are they not getting to high or too low.

We are never ready to play at puck drop. We take 1st periods off nearly ever night.

We can't keep an even keel. Either you gets nights like the Ducks game where they start playing way too hot and letting dirty shit get to them and Ruff can't get them to calm down. Or something bad happens and they sulk and Ruff can't get them back up.

They need someone to take Smith out of the lineup permanently and probably need someone to replace Siegs. Goaltending desperately needs to be addressed.

But Ruff might be the biggest issue that needs fixing. He doesn't seem capable of motivating or managing these players anymore.

Xs and Os aside, he had the guys playing as a team last year and playing the right way. He does not have that this year at all

The constant line juggling, which seems to be his only adjustment, only makes the confidence issue bigger as guys aren't able to develop chemistry, which we need in spades to play the way we want to play.

You can't play fast if you don't have chemistry with your line mates. Pucks stop going in the right direction and everyone gets stuck in mud

We can say Graves wasn’t that good, was a massive drag, and we don’t miss him. But Bahl in a similar situation is significantly worse and has dragged Marino down.

Both 5v5 and PK the results show his role uas not been filled in an adequate fashion.

 

[longislanddevil]

I'm a fan of Mercer but if he can land us Askarov, do you make that trade? Goaltending is at such a premium and there are few teams in the league that have more than one who would be an attractive trade target (who are some others?). Trying to look long term and not just a band aid for this season.

I think I just answered my own question.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I'm a fan of Mercer but if he can land us Askarov, do you make that trade? Goaltending is at such a premium and there are few teams in the league that have more than one who would be an attractive trade target (who are some others?). Trying to look long term and not just a band aid for this season.

I think I just answered my own question.

Ullmark possibly, given Swayman is an RFA. Ullmark would have 5m x 1 year left on his deal. I'd probably be fine trading the 1st rounder this offseason (assuming it's later than 15) for him straight up. I know the conventional wisdom is "a 1st rounder for a goalie is stupid" but given where the devils are in their contention window + late firsts are not worth that much actually + how terrible the goalie market is for UFAs you just have to do an overpayment. That 1st rounder could be the best trade chip the team has.

Part of the reason why I'd like Ruff fired before the end of the season is I'd like some more data about the goaltending, is it really the case the Devils have ZERO NHL goalies on their roster? How much can we really attribute to the defensive tactics? Is it really nothing and these expected goal models are unbiased for NJ? If that's the case NJ is in deep trouble becuase this is a horrible offseason to go into with a cup contender desperately seeking goaltending.

 

[guitarguyvic]

I don’t think this is a massive system failure. Tweak defensive zone to always have a defensemen in front of the net. Offensively the forwards need to be on the puck quicker on an o-zone turnover. Too many of our offensive zone possessions are one and done. Finally cut down on the number of stretch pass attempts, especially early in games. The long passes are missing leading to icing or dump in and easy opposition clears. Also forwards need not fly the d-zone as much, especially those without foot speed to get back on a turnover (I’m looking at Taffoli).

Every one of those things you mention are hallmarks of Lindy’s system and he has shown no willingness to adjust, so it’s not going to change so long as he’s around.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

I'm a fan of Mercer but if he can land us Askarov, do you make that trade? Goaltending is at such a premium and there are few teams in the league that have more than one who would be an attractive trade target (who are some others?). Trying to look long term and not just a band aid for this season.

I think I just answered my own question.

Mercer is far too proven and Askarov unproven to make that kind of a deal. If we had a Casey-level prospect at center, maybe we could’ve looked to make a swap like that. I don’t think there’s a deal to be made. Would’ve been nice to have landed a valuable prospect in the spot we whiffed on Stillman.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

Part of the reason why I'd like Ruff fired before the end of the season is I'd like some more data about the goaltending, is it really the case the Devils have ZERO NHL goalies on their roster? How much can we really attribute to the defensive tactics? Is it really nothing and these expected goal models are unbiased for NJ? If that's the case NJ is in deep trouble becuase this is a horrible offseason to go into with a cup contender desperately seeking goaltending.

This is similar to how I feel about the situation. Another reason why I dismissed the 32Ts opinions because their reasoning was “did Ruff forget how to coach after one season?” No, but he hasn’t adjusted to the personnel change, the youth of the D, the goalies needing more help, the injuries when they were missing their two best players and so on.

His system works great when everything is fine but where is the plan B or contingencies when they don’t? Where is the “protect the lead mode” and discern when to attack. Not advocating for trapping or prevent defense but that switch to “we have a two goal lead, execute order 66” plan. When you listen to interviews with Cooper, he talks about these things.

 

[Iron Balls McGinty]

FYI... Severson comes off of IR tonight for the CBJ. Barring anything unforeseen happening I'd expect to see him in the lineup against the Devils on the 27th.

 

[Devils Trap]

So I dont believe this purely falls on coaching BUT if we did make a change. Who excites // Interests you as a head coach ???

Gallant, Woodcroft are some of the names out there. No idea who else is tbh

 

[Normal Devil]

So I dont believe this purely falls on coaching BUT if we did make a change. Who excites // Interests you as a head coach ???

Gallant, Woodcroft are some of the names out there. No idea who else is tbh

I keep thinking that Brind'Amour or Sullivan will be the next head coach of the Devils. One can only hope.

 

[Bleedred]

So I dont believe this purely falls on coaching BUT if we did make a change. Who excites // Interests you as a head coach ???

Gallant, Woodcroft are some of the names out there. No idea who else is tbh

Gallant sucks. He’s a joke head coach. I used to buy his hype, but he’s shit. It looks like the Gallant mystique is over, since no one rushed to hire him this offseason. And he literally just averages 2 and a bit years in his head coaching gigs. With the Rangers it was exactly 2. His average head coaching gig doesn’t even go 2.5 seasons. It’s probably about 2.25 seasons. He sucks.

I’m wary of Woodcroft. He’s a disciple of Loser Todd McLellan. One of the most overrated coaches of the last 15 years. Other than Gallant, who I think the gig is up with him at this point. There aren’t many believers left. It’ll be interesting to see if Gallant gets another job next year or by the 2025 offseason, which is when I think he won’t be getting paid by the Rangers anymore. He may just rather sit at home collecting his Rangers pay than actually have to go and show up to coach somewhere. I don’t blame Woodcroft for what happened in Edmonton, but I also don’t give him much credit for what happened when they were successful while he was there. He’s just JAG.

I kind of like Evason, but he was the one that kept forcing Fleury to play games in Minnesota over a better Gustavsson. Notice ever since Hynes took over Fleury has started just one game that wasn’t part of a back to back.

Starting the wrong goalie has been a real Ruff-ism this year. Akira hasn’t been good, but Vitek has been borderline unplayable at times and Ruff did nothing but punt us probably a few points in November on Vitek.

 

[Bleedred]

I keep thinking that Brind'Amour or Sullivan will be the next head coach of the Devils. One can only hope.

My hope is that Fitz already has a hope to go after a big name and maybe he’s just gonna sit on Ruff until that happens, and the earliest it would happen is this offseason.

It can’t be Travis Green. He’s a failure. Let him coach a tanker for his second chance just like David Quinn had to go do with the Sharks for his second gig after his time with the Rangers.

Green is one of the worst head coaches of the last 10 years. Look at the difference in play between Green’s firing and the first year when Boudreau took over. It wasn’t just percentages evening out. There was a real 180 in their underlying numbers.

I know they went back into the toilet the next year under Boudreau and he eventually got fired too, but Green is abysmal. He’d be one of my last choices.

 

[billingtons ghost]

We can say Graves wasn’t that good, was a massive drag, and we don’t miss him. But Bahl in a similar situation is significantly worse and has dragged Marino down.

Both 5v5 and PK the results show his role uas not been filled in an adequate fashion.

This. I don't think there's a fancy metric to measure symbiosis with Marino

 

[Bleedred]

Report the team has been discussing going after Allen.

I say f***ing try it if the price is right and hope Marty can goalie whisper him like he did in St. Louis.

Bottom 2 in team save percentage. We can't stick with this tandem any longer. Vitek is cooked and Schmid badly needs AHL rehab

I do think the team needs a shake up in goal in some way.

Whether that’s Daws, whether that’s Allen. It could even be giving Akira more starts, but they will not have that for some reason. A bad game gets him a nice, all expenses paid vacation to the bench for a week to watch Vitek do exactly what he does and sometimes even worse. He’s even gotten one of those after a good game earlier this season.

As I’ve been over 1066 times since probably early November, I don’t even think Allen is better than Vitek. But I do think Allen probably wouldn’t be worse on the New Jersey Devils than the Vitek we’ve seen since the playoffs started last year.

I could see Vitek going to the Canadiens and putting up even better numbers than Allen does there. But Vitek is done and useless here. Everyone is afraid of playing in front of him. He’s afraid of playing behind everyone else.

You usually get exiled after the playoffs he had, much like Turek, Cechmanek and Lalime about 20 years ago. And Lalime was basically exiled just for a game 7 meltdown with a bunch of softies.

We already had another goalie that badly needed to be exiled that wasn’t even dressing by the time the playoffs rolled around though.

 

[Guttersniped]

This. I don't think there's a fancy metric to measure symbiosis with Marino

There’s fancy metrics that show Graves was better than Bahl. There are stats for defensive pairs on several sites including Nat Stat Trick and Money Puck.

 

[billingtons ghost]

My hope is that Fitz already has a hope to go after a big name and maybe he’s just gonna sit on Ruff until that happens, and the earliest it would happen is this offseason.

It can’t be Travis Green. He’s a failure. Let him coach a tanker for his second chance just like David Quinn had to go do with the Sharks for his second gig after his time with the Rangers.

Green is one of the worst head coaches of the last 10 years. Look at the difference in play between Green’s firing and the first year when Boudreau took over. It wasn’t just percentages evening out. There was a real 180 in their underlying numbers.

I know they went back into the toilet the next year under Boudreau and he eventually got fired too, but Green is abysmal. He’d be one of my last choices.

I absolutely guarantee you that unless something really wild happens Lindy Ruff will coach the NJ Devils for at least the next two years or longer... Until we reach the Finals and it's clear we need someone to put us over the top.

Fitz is well aware this is a learning year.

Our backline is green.green.green.
Our front lines haven't gelled
#1 acquisition Timo is hurt and craptastic
Our goaltenders have no confidence bc of the mess in front of them and are too fragile
Jack needs to mature into a responsible player.
Nico is damaged
Hamilton is out
We are still way too small, way too flighty, undisciplined, easily manhandled, easy to get off our game and easy to play against.
The vets brought in for stability are mostly trash.

Yeah the system doesn't work with the personnelif they don't execute. Find players who can execute. Right now that is McLeod and Lazar and few others.
Edit:+ undamaged Nico and Bratt

 

[billingtons ghost]

There’s fancy metrics that show Graves was better than Bahl. There are stats for defensive pairs on several sites including Nat Stat Trick and Money Puck.

I get that there's per pairing stats, but I think even these fail to measure the confidence having a guy with size (who knows how to use it), who uses his stick to cut passes and blocks shots and who's usually in the right place.

In a vacuum Bahl isn't a big step down but there's a reason Graves is always like +46 even playing against top lines. Dude knows how to defend.

 

[Bleedred]

I absolutely guarantee you that unless something really wild happens Lindy Ruff will coach the NJ Devils for at least the next two years or longer... Until we reach the Finals and it's clear we need someone to put us over the top.

Fitz is well aware this is a learning year.

Our backline is green.green.green.
Our front lines haven't gelled
#1 acquisition Timo is hurt and craptastic
Our goaltenders have no confidence bc of the mess in front of them and are too fragile
Jack needs to mature into a responsible player.
Nico is damaged
Hamilton is out
We are still way too small, way too flighty, undisciplined, easily manhandled, easy to get off our game and easy to play against.
The vets brought in for stability are mostly trash.

Yeah the system doesn't work with the personnelif they don't execute. Find players who can execute. Right now that is McLeod and Lazar and few others.

What’s the next two years? This year and next? Or next year and 25-26?

If Ruff is still here by 25-26 then we’ve made the playoffs at least in 24-25.

He MAY (and I mean MAY) get to come back next year if we miss the playoffs this year, but he’d be on a very short leash and he’ll probably be fired by this time next year if next year goes how this one has with Ruff still behind the bench.

He won’t survive the next two years (the rest of this year and next) with playoff misses in both years. No way. We’re probably talking about a GM change to go along with it if Fitz allows that to happen.

Not even John Hynes survived that on a team with much lower expectations. Even he only officially missed the playoffs consecutively here as many times as Ruff has. His first two seasons, just like Ruff’s first two seasons.

He got to come back to start year five after a playoff miss in year four, which followed a playoff berth in year three, but he didn’t last too long into year five.

 

[guitarguyvic]

My hope is that Fitz already has a hope to go after a big name and maybe he’s just gonna sit on Ruff until that happens, and the earliest it would happen is this offseason.

It can’t be Travis Green. He’s a failure. Let him coach a tanker for his second chance just like David Quinn had to go do with the Sharks for his second gig after his time with the Rangers.

Green is one of the worst head coaches of the last 10 years. Look at the difference in play between Green’s firing and the first year when Boudreau took over. It wasn’t just percentages evening out. There was a real 180 in their underlying numbers.

I know they went back into the toilet the next year under Boudreau and he eventually got fired too, but Green is abysmal. He’d be one of my last choices.

Do you think any coach is good? Lol

 

[Guttersniped]

I do think the team needs a shake up in goal in some way.

Whether that’s Daws, whether that’s Allen. It could even be giving Akira more starts, but they will not have that for some reason. A bad game gets him a nice, all expenses paid vacation to the bench for a week to watch Vitek do exactly what he does and sometimes even worse. He’s even gotten one of those after a good game earlier this season.

As I’ve been over 1066 times since probably early November, I don’t even think Allen is better than Vitek. But I do think Allen probably wouldn’t be worse on the New Jersey Devils than the Vitek we’ve seen since the playoffs started last year.

I could see Vitek going to the Canadiens and putting up even better numbers than Allen does there. But Vitek is done and useless here. Everyone is afraid of playing in front of him. He’s afraid of playing behind everyone else.

You usually get exiled after the playoffs he had, much like Turek, Cechmanek and Lalime about 20 years ago. And Lalime was basically exiled just for a game 7 meltdown with a bunch of softies.

We already had another goalie that badly needed to be exiled that wasn’t even dressing by the time the playoffs rolled around though.

Akira has 12 more games before he loses his waiver exemption so maybe they want to preserve that.

If they thought he was a NHL goalie that wouldn’t matter but they don’t.

 

[Bleedred]

Do you think any coach is good? Lol

Let me put it this way for you.

If I only thought 5 or 10 coaches were BAD, Travis Green would be on that list.

Maybe he can get better. And maybe he wouldn’t do bad with a STACKED lineup. But the last thing we need to be doing when still trying to find our way is making Travis Green the head coach here.

 

[billingtons ghost]

What’s the next two years? This year and next? Or next year and 25-26?

If Ruff is still here by 25-26 then we’ve made the playoffs at least in 24-25.

He MAY (and I mean MAY) get to come back next year if we miss the playoffs this year, but he’d be on a very short leash and he’ll probably be fired by this time next year if next year goes how this one has with Ruff still behind the bench.

He won’t survive the next two years (the rest of this year and next) with playoff misses in both years. No way. We’re probably talking about a GM change to go along with it if Fitz allows that to happen.

Not even John Hynes survives that on a team with much lower expectations. Even he only officially missed the playoffs consecutively here as many times as Ruff has. His first two seasons, just like Ruff’s first two seasons.

He got to come back to start year five after a playoff miss in year four, which followed a playoff berth in year three, but he didn’t last too long into year five.

Idk man. The expectations this year were bonkers. Lots of people including myself thought they'd take a step back losing Graves and Sevs, but I was still absurdly optimistic.
If Ruff gets his classic 'too much of a players coach' country club rap u could be right but I don't know who's out there with the 'good for young players' tab either.

I mean, a bold move would be to bench Jack and let him watch for a game to wake everyone up but we are so thin everywhere it's like: put in Tierny?

 

[Bleedred]

Akira has 12 more games before he loses his waiver exemption so maybe they want to preserve that.

If they thought he was a NHL goalie that wouldn’t matter but they don’t.

That’s why I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s time to give Daws a shot.

We have time to shuttle them back and forth before that runs out.

Daws has more starts than we probably realize at the NHL level, so I’m curious as to how many more games he has before his waiver exemption runs out?

I’ve said since last year when I was for nothing but letting Blackwood go away at any costs and not weighing down our cap with his qualifying offer or anything near it, that we could potentially rotate Daws and Schmid if one isn’t working. And both are so cheap that we’d make out better even if both provided the same shitty Blackwood goaltending with minimum wage-ish cap/salary than Blackwood at anywhere near his qualifying offer.

 

[guitarguyvic]

Let me put it this way for you.

If I only thought 5 or 10 coaches were BAD, Travis Green would be on that list.

Maybe he can get better. And maybe he wouldn’t do bad with a STACKED lineup. But the last thing we need to be doing when still trying to find our way is making Travis Green the head coach here.

I just don’t understand why Fitz would bring him onboard in the first place. I’m worried that letting Brunette go is gonna go down as a huge, stupid blunder on his part.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

I absolutely guarantee you that unless something really wild happens Lindy Ruff will coach the NJ Devils for at least the next two years or longer... Until we reach the Finals and it's clear we need someone to put us over the top.

Fitz is well aware this is a learning year.

Our backline is green.green.green.
Our front lines haven't gelled
#1 acquisition Timo is hurt and craptastic
Our goaltenders have no confidence bc of the mess in front of them and are too fragile
Jack needs to mature into a responsible player.
Nico is damaged
Hamilton is out
We are still way too small, way too flighty, undisciplined, easily manhandled, easy to get off our game and easy to play against.
The vets brought in for stability are mostly trash.

Yeah the system doesn't work with the personnelif they don't execute. Find players who can execute. Right now that is McLeod and Lazar and few others.

It's unlikely he's the coach in two years, he might not even be the coach in two weeks. It could happen though if they start winning games and the team has a nice playoff run. Still very possible despite the bad feels going around.

I also object a bit to the learning / transition year stuff, seems like goalpost moving to me. The team was considered a preseason contender based on betting odds. Fitz made moves based on the assumption the team was going to be contending, other than in net where he was probably a bit overconfident in some great postseason games from Schmid or Vanecek's regular season last year, with 20/20 hindsight to be fair.

It is true the team was expected to work in Luke Hughes and losing Severson/Graves was gonna hurt a little, but the transition was thought to be closer to some bad shifts from Hughes and mistakes needing to be corrected over the course of a regular season. If the team misses the playoffs Fitz will have to answer for that for sure and there's zero chance Ruff returns. That is not "learning year" expectations.

 

[Bleedred]

I just don’t understand why Fitz would bring him onboard in the first place. I’m worried that letting Brunette go is gonna go down as a huge, stupid blunder on his part.

Now that’s a coach I would have LOVED to see as our next head coach.

And I still think he was pulling a lot of the strings we saw last year. The team looked too much like the 21-22 Panthers that he coached or at least for all but the first 5 or 7 games before that piece of shit Quenneville had to resign.

The team looked EXPLOSIVE last year. They were a threat to score on every shift.

We’ve probably already had as many games this year where we couldn’t score on some worthless goalie as we had all of last year.

We’re clearly not a threat to score on every shift this year, which explains the (massive) drop in 5 on 5 scoring.

If all Green is allowed to touch is our power play then I’m more than fine with that, but past history shows he’s not any good with the head coaching thing and I gotta wonder if he has the kind of pull that Brunette had last year, because if he has anything to do with the way our offense runs/attacks more than just at man advantage situations then I think he’s more of a problem than Ruff.

The Preds are definitely overachieving right now. Not sure if that’s just Saros + shitty division or if there’s something more……