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

[bigd]

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.

I believe Akira is getting close to the # of games where if put on waivers he could be lost so if they are going to send him down, they have to make that decision sooner rather than later. I think Daws will get the call soon unless they make a trade for a goalie.

 

[devilsblood]

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 could be part of the equation

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

presented without comment

 

[devilsblood]

presented without comment

Seems weird all those stats are good except xga

 

[billingtons ghost]

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.

Letting Graves walk and letting Severson walk are moves that a potential cup winner don't make, but that a team that is early in the process makes. I don't think for a second that Fitz bought into the ridiculous hype of 'betting odds'.

The same people who said we were a goalie away from being a playoff team two years ago with Subban and Ty Smith back there think we're a goalie away now despite all of the breakdowns and all of the sloppy giveaways and terrible team defense.

The team proved that it could play Ruff's system with the right personnel last year and broke team records in every category, so it all seems like it's down to execution of the players on the ice, no?

There's plenty of time to right the ship. That's why this is a learning year.

Either the players figure it out, or there will be deals to make. Either way we went from fire Lindy to sorry Lindy back to fire Lindy.

I don't like the way he juggles the lines, and maybe he needs to be harder and bench some of the clowns. But I seriously doubt they can him this year or the next

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

 

[britdevil]

Completely apathetic to firing Lindy. You won't get a better coach in season and the prospect of Travis Green as interim has massive potential to sink the season entirely.

Just have to live with it I think. Hope they hit a purple patch and drag themselves closer to a guaranteed playoff spot.

 

[Bleedred]

But I seriously doubt they can him this year or the next

I doubt they can him this year either, but if things continue it will happen in the offseason or next year.

If we're struggling at this time next year and Ruff is still the head coach, he will have literally survived longer than Hynes did (probably fewer games though, due to the covid shortened 56 game season) and will have had the same identical playoff making percentage that Hynes did through that many years. And Hynes got fired on December 1st (or so) of that season.

Expectations are now higher than at any point when Hynes was here, although I do think you're right that he won't be canned THIS year. At least not in-season.

 

[Billdo]

presented without comment

This goes against what a lot of posters on here said yesterday when I said it was like a 90% goaltending thing.

 

[Darkauron]

Yeah it is obvious that our D is not the big problem. It is totally the goalies in every aspect

 

[Bleedred]

For what it’s worth, neither goalie is expected to have a league average save percentage on this team according to both the evolving hockey and moneypuck models, but both are still breaking under even.

Vitek more than Akira.

Although Vitek’s expected save percentage on moneypuck is lower than Akira’s. So their model suggests Vitek has faced tougher chances/tougher competition.

But Vitek is about a half a goal below expected per 60 minutes on moneypuck. Akira is closer to a quarter of a goal below expected per 60.

 

[tailfins]

Seems weird all those stats are good except xga

Agree. How does that happen?

If it’s correct / real, the xga number is a pretty significant indictment of the team’s defensive play.

 

[Bleedred]

And I've already been over that I think they play worse in front of Vitek, which I believe is just as much an indictment on him as it is the rest of the team.

They play scared, just expecting they're gonna make a mistake. It's definitely in their head at this point. They play nervous.

Sometimes playing scared and nervous is a good thing, but not in that way. Some situations you can be nervous and it can cause you to stay calmer, but that's only making them more anxious.

Because they know that Vitek is gonna let in just about anything and 3 goals in 4 or 5 minutes is something that's starting to happen more than once in a great while.

And Vitek looks shaky almost the entire game, all the time and when he doesn't, out of nowhere he'll just fall apart. Like last game.

The only hint we had to him caving the other night was when he let out a horrible rebound in the 2nd period, then they hit the post with that shot and he turned and spun around for no reason. Even Ray Ferraro was confused on that. Other than that, he looked fine until the dam broke out of nowhere in the 3rd period.

And in the game before that? He didn't look that bad on the actual goals scored, but he bobbling two different dump ins that almost led to really awful goals. He looked shaky for the first 2 periods of that game and most shaky in the 1st period.

There's no bringing him back here. This could happen to a player of any position of course. Not just goalies. But there's a lot of example of a player being toast with one team and once they get off of that team they're all rehabbed and fixed right up and back to normal.

 

[Killing Joke]

This goes against what a lot of posters on here said yesterday when I said it was like a 90% goaltending thing.

Yea, anyone thinking this isn't a goaltending problem is out to lunch.

The expected goals against rate being higher has a lot to do with the PK being ass.

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

This goes against what a lot of posters on here said yesterday when I said it was like a 90% goaltending thing.

I was one of them so Ill respond:

I do think the defense is worse this season and I feel its our inability to use our defenseman properly; we have a bigger defense than most, and were running a scheme that requires a decent bit more skating for them than your average defensive zone.

It caught teams off-guard last year and now theyre playing us better below the goal line in order to abuse this flaw.

Thats how I see it so if the statistics are saying otherwise, like I said last time, id have to question the validity or formula for such numbers. Im not a coach in the National though so its possible im simply wrong

 

[Killing Joke]

Agree. How does that happen?

If it’s correct / real, the xga number is a pretty significant indictment of the team’s defensive play.

PK is factored into it. 5 on 5 the team is good defensively. PK wise it isn’t. Goaltending is absolutely cratering this team.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Agree. How does that happen?

If it’s correct / real, the xga number is a pretty significant indictment of the team’s defensive play.

If that is all situations xGA I assume that includes empty nets? It feels like we’ve given up a ton of empty netters with the amount of close games we’ve lost. I’m sure we’re up there in the league lead in that category.

 

[Bleedred]

Go to every team's forum right now that's struggling and giving up a lot of goals. They all believe their team is the worst defense ever and their goalies are not a problem at all.

By ''They all'' I mean all the fanbases, but not all of the fans of said fanbase.

There was a Sharks fan on the main board acting like Blackwood is putting in one of the greatest goalie performances ever seen because he was around .900% behind that team. That was earlier in the season, before he dropped off a bit and Kahkonen also wound up picking it up, so I guess he's now putting in one of the greatest goalie performances ever seen, outside of Blackwood a month or two ago lol.

The team is making the goalies look worse, but they're also not playing up to their potential either. And that's for Vitek particularly. Akira has barely played and when he has, he's still not doing quite as bad as Vitek is.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

My longtime ex-girlfriend’s mom and her side were Spanish (a couple of generations removed from Spain) and her dad and his side were Jewish.

So we had a fun time with me trading some Italian curses and her teaching me all the Spanish and even some Hebrew curses.

I can’t remember many of them though. Those Italian ones stuck with me because I heard them growing up. I’m not sure if my mom and grandmother used to say them instead of the English ones because I wouldn’t know any better or what. I heard plenty of the English ones, so I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the reason.

Even my dad, who is actually not at all Italian would regularly use them.

My grandfather (mom’s dad) was not Italian and didn’t really say them. It was mostly my mom and grandmother (mom’s mom) and it was her mom that was where we got the Italian ancestry from.

And then when I grew up and The Sopranos started coming on, they said a lot of the same Italian swears and a few other phrases I grew up hearing.

Yeah I like learning languages in general, Spanish is my favorites cause of how big it is throughout the world plus living in NY it's actually really needed nowadays lol. I almost took Italian in high school but chose against it. During covid, I tried learning Italian but I went back to Spanish stuff again. I know like some phrases in Italian to where if I was in Italy I'd survive but it'd be very broken lol

Go to every team's forum right now that's struggling and giving up a lot of goals. They all believe their team is the worst defense ever and their goalies are not a problem at all.

By ''They all'' I mean all the fanbases, but not all of the fans of said fanbase.

There was a Sharks fan on the main board acting like Blackwood is putting in one of the greatest goalie performances ever seen because he was around .900% behind that team. That was earlier in the season, before he dropped off a bit and Kahkonen also wound up picking it up, so I guess he's now putting in one of the greatest goalie performances ever seen, outside of Blackwood a month or two ago lol.

The team is making the goalies look worse, but they're also not playing up to their potential either. And that's for Vitek particularly. Akira has barely played and when he has, he's still not doing quite as bad as Vitek is.

This is a common thing, every fanbase also thinks every first goal is scored against them lmao

presented without comment

Not @'ing you with this comment but this is all the proof you need that goaltending is tough to understand. The goalie that was .911 last year is hamstringing this roster but you could make the argument that everyone saw this coming after the playoffs to where you improve it but what happens if you did improve it and you get the same garbage numbers from a Gibson per se

 

[NjdevilfanJim]

And I've already been over that I think they play worse in front of Vitek, which I believe is just as much an indictment on him as it is the rest of the team.

They play scared, just expecting they're gonna make a mistake. It's definitely in their head at this point. They play nervous.

Sometimes playing scared and nervous is a good thing, but not in that way. Some situations you can be nervous and it can cause you to stay calmer, but that's only making them more anxious.

Because they know that Vitek is gonna let in just about anything and 3 goals in 4 or 5 minutes is something that's starting to happen more than once in a great while.

And Vitek looks shaky almost the entire game, all the time and when he doesn't, out of nowhere he'll just fall apart. Like last game.

The only hint we had to him caving the other night was when he let out a horrible rebound in the 2nd period, then they hit the post with that shot and he turned and spun around for no reason. Even Ray Ferraro was confused on that. Other than that, he looked fine until the dam broke out of nowhere in the 3rd period.

And in the game before that? He didn't look that bad on the actual goals scored, but he bobbling two different dump ins that almost led to really awful goals. He looked shaky for the first 2 periods of that game and most shaky in the 1st period.

There's no bringing him back here. This could happen to a player of any position of course. Not just goalies. But there's a lot of example of a player being toast with one team and once they get off of that team they're all rehabbed and fixed right up and back to normal.

I still root for V but can't argue that he seems really unsettled here and might not rebound....I think if he is dealt he will find his game sooner rather than later but I am pulling for the guy seems like a good team guy

 

[Guttersniped]

I doubt they can him this year either, but if things continue it will happen in the offseason or next year.

If we're struggling at this time next year and Ruff is still the head coach, he will have literally survived longer than Hynes did (probably fewer games though, due to the covid shortened 56 game season) and will have had the same identical playoff making percentage that Hynes did through that many years. And Hynes got fired on December 1st (or so) of that season.

Expectations are now higher than at any point when Hynes was here, although I do think you're right that he won't be canned THIS year. At least not in-season.

Hynes was fired on 3rd, the Sabres blow out loss was on the 2nd and the Vegas game he didn’t coach was the next day.

I don’t particularly worry about when Ruff goes later down in the road, to many unknowns are involved.

If someone like Sullivan or Cooper hit the market, then I would care more, but that hasn’t happened (and I don’t predict it will anytime soon).

 

[Bleedred]

Hynes was fired on 3rd, the Sabres blow out loss was on the 2nd and the Vegas game he didn’t coach was the next day.

I don’t particularly worry about when Ruff goes later down in the road, to many unknowns are involved.

If someone like Sullivan or Cooper hit the market, then I would care more, but that hasn’t happened (and I don’t predict it will anytime soon).

I remember exactly where I was when Hynes was fired.

I knew it was the first few days of December. I was at a KFC by me, which used to have a buffet, which got done away with during the pandemic and they never brought it back lol. You didn’t get everything they served in the restaurant on it, but I think they had just about every piece of the chicken, as well as Cole slaw, mashed potatoes, a few others things and desserts.

I was in there with the love of my life talking about how much we loved each other and how we were gonna try for a baby soon and live the rest of our lives so happy.

But like Hynes, Taylor Hall and Ray Shero…….she’s gone lol. She ain’t been gone quite as long as that cast of characters though.

Green and Coleman were later casualties that year and then Zajac and Palmieri the next year. She didn’t quite outlast the last two though.

 

[Killing Joke]

Hynes was fired on 3rd, the Sabres blow out loss was on the 2nd and the Vegas game he didn’t coach was the next day.

I don’t particularly worry about when Ruff goes later down in the road, to many unknowns are involved.

If someone like Sullivan or Cooper hit the market, then I would care more, but that hasn’t happened (and I don’t predict it will anytime soon).

You fire the coach regardless of who is available if the team keeps under performing and having horrible collapses like they have as of late and keep losing to bad teams (Edmonton doesn't fit that mold).

 

[Guttersniped]

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.

Graves never used his size, I would say that’s something Bahl does more.

Graves biggest advantage was probably experience.

You aren’t wrong. That pair had great success last year, particularly on the PK where they were both excellent and lucky (a great combo). It’s in their numbers though. Not sure that success have continued this season even if he stayed but it was a great pair last year. Graves was never a problem.

We took a step back on defense we had to take. It’s easier to throw a guy like Toffoli in the mix than get a 5m defender to immediately work (for an example, see Graves on the Penguins this season).

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Letting Graves walk and letting Severson walk are moves that a potential cup winner don't make, but that a team that is early in the process makes. I don't think for a second that Fitz bought into the ridiculous hype of 'betting odds'.

The same people who said we were a goalie away from being a playoff team two years ago with Subban and Ty Smith back there think we're a goalie away now despite all of the breakdowns and all of the sloppy giveaways and terrible team defense.

The team proved that it could play Ruff's system with the right personnel last year and broke team records in every category, so it all seems like it's down to execution of the players on the ice, no?

There's plenty of time to right the ship. That's why this is a learning year.

Either the players figure it out, or there will be deals to make. Either way we went from fire Lindy to sorry Lindy back to fire Lindy.

I don't like the way he juggles the lines, and maybe he needs to be harder and bench some of the clowns. But I seriously doubt they can him this year or the next

Letting Severson walk was decided when they traded for Marino. Deciding to let Graves go was probably finalized after the playoffs where he looked too slow and L. Hughes looked so good. These are the type of decisions contenders have to make in a world with a salary cap, not everyone can be kept even if they are useful. I invoked the betting odds just as a semi-objective means of determining where the season expectations lay going into this year.

I think it's safe to say if the team misses the playoffs the year was a disappointment. I also think it's safe to say Fitz is not happy about how the team is playing right now and it goes beyond goaltending. Certain players he's happy with, but as a whole, it's not a pretty picture. The playoffs last year was supposed to signal the team's ascension into a perennial playoff team with talent that if it reached its ceiling would make it a cup contender. The window was just opening. The team is not going to feel good about Holtz, Luke Hughes, Jack Hughes, and Nemec having great years if they miss the playoffs.

Basically the bare minimum for success this year is losing in the first round but the Hughes brothers looking great, with other core players looking like major contributors and not terrible. Team is not on track for that at the moment.