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

[Ripshot 43]

Dimitri feeding us today

That 8 minute video

 

[Hisch13r]

8 games into the year and already have 2 guys who have been on 7 game pt streaks lol

 

[Emperoreddy]

 

[njdevils1982]

holy reaching for a 'relevant' stat.....and where is shitcago and their f***ing shiny new toy?

 

[Emperoreddy]

holy reaching for a 'relevant' stat.....and where is shitcago and their f***ing shiny new toy?

Behind Luke for rookie scoring as of right now

 

[Clam Jensen]

Behind Luke for rookie scoring as of right now

But the main board said he was better than Jack already before the season started!

 

[Emperoreddy]

That 8 minute video

He could have 10 more points on the year

 

[Devs3cups]

One stat that grabs my attention:

Scoring chances against: 10th
SCSV%: 28th
High danger chances against: 15th
HDSV%: 25th

 

[Hisch13r]

One stat that grabs my attention:

Scoring chances against: 10th
SCSV%: 28th
High danger chances against: 15th
HDSV%: 25th

10th in 5v5 xGA/60. 24th in PK xGA/60 which drags the AS xGA/60 down to 22nd. The PK’s been reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaalllllllll bad

 

[Emperoreddy]

The D needs to tighten up some, but yeah it seems like the goaltending and the PK are the biggest issues right now

 

[Emperoreddy]

 

[NJDevs26]

Little harder for a minimally talented defenseman to pull that off, unless he lays out Trouba I suppose

 

[BronzeAgeDevilsFan]

It didn't happen here, but it did elsewhere on social media, but we know that Facebook, Twitter, and reddit fans are out to lunch

Anyways, I am trying to see how our offense scores next season. (2023 total: 289 goals for)

Meier: 40
Hughes: 40
Hischier: 25
Toffoli: 30
Bratt: 25
Mercer: 30
Haula/Palat: 25
Total (8 players): 215

Other forwards: 40
Bastian/Boqvist/McCleod/Lazer: 20
Holtz/Clarke/Foote: 20

Hamilton: 15
L Hughes/Nemec: 10
Other defense: 10
Total: 35

Grand total: 290

Just to be clear, my rationale was how to get to 290 goals, not necessarily what I think is a conservative estimate. For example, I think Toffoli is more likely to score 25, I have a hard time seeing how Timo gets 40 and Mercer getting 30 would be a pleasant surprise.

^that's as far as I got into "questioning" the offense on 6/28. I bold my disclaimer here bc I did not say how much I think each player will score, just how much we need/optimistically expect.

 

[Zippy316]

I don’t recall Haula really being a villain.

I think everyone collectively liked what he brought, he was just hilariously snake bitten all year. It was frustratingly bad for a while, but he clearly brought a game that unlocked Hughes at 5-on-5.

 

[NJDevs26]

Nah we were definitely slagging Haula for being stonehands, or at least most of us. Sure earlier in his career he'd had some offensive capabilities but I wasn't sure we'd ever see that here at this point in his career.

 

[Billdo]

I don’t recall Haula really being a villain.

I think everyone collectively liked what he brought, he was just hilariously snake bitten all year. It was frustratingly bad for a while, but he clearly brought a game that unlocked Hughes at 5-on-5.

Ppl dragged him last year for sure. Villain? Probably not as much as Smith or Severson but he wasn't talked about kindly by more than few.

 

[Mgd31]

Huala was never a villain. He’s a hero

 

[Incharge1976]

Wait you can bring a dog to the rock?

Only Rocweilers

 

[My3Sons]

Isn’t most of the criticism of any player just short term stuff? I don’t recall anyone saying Haula sucked or was trash or wasn’t an NHL player.

 

[njdevil26]

Really hope this isn't a sign of really bad news for Nico, but he had a public signing coming up on Nov 19 at Sports Minded Unlimited in Warren and the team cancelled it.

 

[Guttersniped]

I don't really remember seeing anyone question the loss of offense, pretty much everyone agreed that those forwards were expendable players who were mostly in peripheral roles. Not necessarily bad players, but replaceable ones. The questions were mostly about the defense.

But regardless - Toffoli kind of had to be an upgrade over Sharangovich by default, the later was a healthy scratch for the final ~1/4 of the season. So just seeing the ice and getting a regular shift in the top-6 is an automatic improvement. Toffoli had as many points as Bratt did last year (73), but I figured that was a career year and he wouldn't reach it again.

I figured 30-35-65 was about what to expect from Toffoli in a bit of a lesser role. I don't expect him to keep this pace up all year. But still. 40 goals and 80 points seems like it's potentially in the cards.

Toffoli makes up for a big chunk of the lost offense, but we did lose it.

We lost
Forwards:
Tatar 80 GP 20G 28A 48 points (6th)
Sharangovich 75 GP 13G 17A 30 points (9th)
Wood 76 GP 13G 14A 27 points (10th)
Boqvist 70 GP 10G 11A 21 points (14th)
Zetterlund 46 GP 6G 14A 20 points (16th)
Defense:
Severson 81 GP 7GP 26A 33 points (8th)
Graves 78 GP 8G 18A 26 points (11th)
Total: 77G 128A 205 points

Plus Meier did play last year, he contributed
Meier 21 GP 9G 5A 14 points
Due to injury.
Palat 49 GP 8G 15A 23 points
Didn’t play much
Holtz 19 GP 3G 1A 4 points

The additions on forward were Toffoli (on fire), Lazar (no points in 7 GP) and Nosek (no points 2 GP, injured).

Also we would get more from having Meier full time (7 points but 1G), plus hopefully get more from Palat (2A in 8 GP) and Holtz (3 points in 8 GP).

Luke (6 points in 8 GP) obviously had the potential to make up a big chunk of the offense lost on defense but Bahl (2 points in 8 GP) won’t help that much.

The other danger was players underperforming after having career years last season. It happens.

Eventually our PP will cool off to some degree, as will Jack and Bratt. Haula’s hot start has given the team some key early secondary scoring, other players have to step up when he cools off.

I was in no way worried about our production. My big hope for this season was for an improved power play and so far that’s gone better than I ever imagined it would. It’s doing great without Meier scoring on it yet and he had 17 PP goals last year.

 

[Hisch13r]

Toffoli makes up for a big chunk of the lost offense, but we did lose it.

We lost
Forwards:
Tatar 80 GP 20G 28A 48 points (6th)
Sharangovich 75 GP 13G 17A 30 points (9th)
Wood 76 GP 13G 14A 27 points (10th)
Boqvist 70 GP 10G 11A 21 points (14th)
Zetterlund 46 GP 6G 14A 20 points (16th)
Defense:
Severson 81 GP 7GP 26A 33 points (8th)
Graves 78 GP 8G 18A 26 points (11th)
Total: 77G 128A 205 points

Plus Meier did play last year, he contributed
Meier 21 GP 9G 5A 14 points
Due to injury.
Palat 49 GP 8G 15A 23 points
Didn’t play much
Holtz 19 GP 3G 1A 4 points

The additions on forward were Toffoli (on fire), Lazar (no points in 7 GP) and Nosek (no points 2 GP, injured).

Also we would to get more from having Meier full time (7 points but 1G), plus hopefully get more from Palat (2A in 8 GP) and Holtz (3 points in 8 GP).

Luke (6 points in 8 GP) obviously had the potential to make up a big chunk of the offense lost on defense but Bahl (2 points in 8 GP) won’t help that much.

The other danger was players underperforming after having career years last season. It happens.

Eventually our PP will cool off to some degree, as will Jack and Bratt. Haula’s hot start has given the team some key early secondary scoring, other players have to step up when he cools off.

I was in no way worried about our production. My big hope for this season was for an improved power play and so far that’s gone better than I ever imagined it would. It’s doing great without Meier scoring on it yet and he had 17 PP goals last year.

So we lost 77 goals and added Toffoli who put up 34 and Meier who put up 31 in 57 games. That’s 65 goals from 2 guys alone. There was never a reason to be concerned over the offense

 

[Guttersniped]

Wait you can bring a dog to the rock?

If they’re hockey fans, yes, and from their responses in the video those dogs do know their hockey.

 

[Saugus]

Nah we were definitely slagging Haula for being stonehands, or at least most of us. Sure earlier in his career he'd had some offensive capabilities but I wasn't sure we'd ever see that here at this point in his career.

There were definitely people who were upset that Ruff had Haula stapled to Hughes for half of last season, especially when he was under that voodoo curse and couldn’t score.

Like he definitely botched many, many glorious chances that Jack handed to him on a platter, but there was no better option because Hughes still needed somebody to take faceoffs for him.

 

[Oneiro]

I just want the Timo eruption.