Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023-24 season part III

[Triumph]

There’s no way the real John Marino wasn’t abducted by aliens this past offseason

He's made his share of mistakes but the goalies just don't stop the puck when he is on the ice. He has the second-lowest on-ice SV% of any defenseman in the league.

 

[AfroThunder396]

I think it's interesting that over the past few years the biggest complaint was that we were a fast, soft, finesse team who needed more size, more puck possession, and more shooters. Not that we've made an effort to get those guys like Meier and Toffoli, people complain that they're bad fits and that the team is better without them.

I feel like we're stuck in this weird no mans land at the moment. We used to be a one dimensional team, but at least we had a solid identity and executed it very well. We were the fast team that rolled 4 lines and skated you into the ground. offense supported the defense with speed, defense supported the offense with speed. This season, I don't really know what our identity is. We aren't the team with the killer speed we saw in previous years (Colorado skated circles around us last night), but we aren't a forechecking puck possession team either. We try to split the difference and end up doing a mediocre job at both.

McLeod, Wood, Sharangovich, Zetterlund, that's a lot of speed gone from the roster in the past year and they've all been replaced by much slower players. When Jack/Bratt/Nico is also out of the lineup, it's even more apparent. There's still enough talent on this roster to win some games, even without Jack and Dougie. But I do feel like Fitz overcorrected a bit. In his attempt to make us more well rounded, we sacrificed what made us great in previous years.

The decisions to move on from Wood, Sharangovich, etc were all correct in a vacuum, but those moves chipped away at our team speed and moved further and further away from what made last year's team great. Compare to guys like Haula and Lazar - both are tenacious vets with position flexibility, but they don't sacrifice speed to do so. Both were/are really great fits that worked within the existing identity of the team. Hopefully as Luke, Nemec, and Holtz continue to grow and get more responsibility we'll see some of that speed return (throw Gritsyuk and Casey in there too).Even with Jack in the lineup we were struggling to win consistently - honestly Jack saved us from our own mediocrity more than I think many of us would like to admit.

I also think there are quite a few players on this roster who don't understand exactly what is and what isn't expected about them. Guys like Mercer, Holtz, Haula, Bastian are getting ping-ponged all throughout the lineup. For young players this is especially bad. I get that it's a matter of injuries and circumstance, but when you have slower players like Bastian and Palat in your top-6 it totally kills the speed of the other guys they're playing with. Those guys need to be out there with similar speed players, otherwise they're an anchor for the entire line.

Perhaps it is as simple as getting a coach in here who will actually play to his teams strengths. I don't think we're in terrible shape or anything, we are still set up exceptionally well in the medium and long term. But it kinda sucks to see us wasting these awesome RFA bargain contracts with players and coaches that don't really know how to get out of their own way. Last year's team had obvious flaws, but I would rather a team that knows who it is. I don't know what the Devils identity is this season.

 

[Oneiro]

^Excellent post.

I don’t think this team is capable of going all the way. There is just not much evidence of that unless you want to anchor to last year and disregard the amount of turnover and inexperience in between. It’s dead on that the identity is unclear and I still lay that on Ruff.

This year has value in that the minutes the kids are playing now with virtually no margin for error will translate to poise in the years to come. And we should still push for the playoffs. But I don’t think the team has proven that they deserve a move beyond a cheap stopgap, which is really just another roll of the dice.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

That’s right

 

[Satans Hockey]

Hatakka is our new Ansi Salmela.

The Church of Hatakka is here...

Hat Church for short

 

[Better Call Sal]

Hatakka is our new Ansi Salmela.

The Church of Hatakka is here...

 

[JimEIV]

Not sure I see the difference when we are talking about youth and inexperience but so be it.

Offense and skill are much less dependent on experience. In fact, you can argue time is more of an enemy to offense.

That vast majority of the top 50 all time single season points leaders are under 25...I think it's only 5 of the top 50 are over 30....now go look at the Norris Trophy winners, it's almost exactly the opposite.

 

[Xirik]

Hatakka is our new Ansi Salmela.

The Church of Hatakka is here...

Maybe I've been playing to many D&D games but that Church sounds like its for and run by fish people.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

I think it's interesting that over the past few years the biggest complaint was that we were a fast, soft, finesse team who needed more size, more puck possession, and more shooters. Not that we've made an effort to get those guys like Meier and Toffoli, people complain that they're bad fits and that the team is better without them.

I feel like we're stuck in this weird no mans land at the moment. We used to be a one dimensional team, but at least we had a solid identity and executed it very well. We were the fast team that rolled 4 lines and skated you into the ground. offense supported the defense with speed, defense supported the offense with speed. This season, I don't really know what our identity is. We aren't the team with the killer speed we saw in previous years (Colorado skated circles around us last night), but we aren't a forechecking puck possession team either. We try to split the difference and end up doing a mediocre job at both.

McLeod, Wood, Sharangovich, Zetterlund, that's a lot of speed gone from the roster in the past year and they've all been replaced by much slower players. When Jack/Bratt/Nico is also out of the lineup, it's even more apparent. There's still enough talent on this roster to win some games, even without Jack and Dougie. But I do feel like Fitz overcorrected a bit. In his attempt to make us more well rounded, we sacrificed what made us great in previous years.

The decisions to move on from Wood, Sharangovich, etc were all correct in a vacuum, but those moves chipped away at our team speed and moved further and further away from what made last year's team great. Compare to guys like Haula and Lazar - both are tenacious vets with position flexibility, but they don't sacrifice speed to do so. Both were/are really great fits that worked within the existing identity of the team. Hopefully as Luke, Nemec, and Holtz continue to grow and get more responsibility we'll see some of that speed return (throw Gritsyuk and Casey in there too).Even with Jack in the lineup we were struggling to win consistently - honestly Jack saved us from our own mediocrity more than I think many of us would like to admit.

I also think there are quite a few players on this roster who don't understand exactly what is and what isn't expected about them. Guys like Mercer, Holtz, Haula, Bastian are getting ping-ponged all throughout the lineup. For young players this is especially bad. I get that it's a matter of injuries and circumstance, but when you have slower players like Bastian and Palat in your top-6 it totally kills the speed of the other guys they're playing with. Those guys need to be out there with similar speed players, otherwise they're an anchor for the entire line.

Perhaps it is as simple as getting a coach in here who will actually play to his teams strengths.

The issue is the bolded. It's not really the team's identity that's the issue, it's more that their strengths aren't really being used well. The identity this season is being asked to play a style that doesn't fit anyone except Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt lol.

 

[Triumph]

Offense and skill are much less dependent on experience. In fact, you can argue time is more of an enemy to offense.

That vast majority of the top 50 all time single season points leaders are under 25...I think it's only 5 of the top 50 are over 30....now go look at the Norris Trophy winners, it's almost exactly the opposite.

This is a bad example because Norris Trophies are often won based on reputation, and so that creates a sort of backlog of deserving winners.

The trend of D men lasting well into their late 30s as exceptional seems to have slowed of late, obviously in the 90s-00s we had Stevens, Bourque, MacInnis and others, and later on guys like Blake and Pronger and Lidstrom lasted a very long time, but we're seeing less of that - Burns is still at a high level and Karlsson's had his ups and downs, Letang's still real good, but there's just not that many 35+ D playing great these days.

 

[PKs Broken Stick]

Am I the only one extremely concerned that our entire team relies on a single player to function? I mean, I've heard of one-line teams, but one-man teams?

This team on paper isn't a one man team, not even close. It's the system that is (meaning it doesn't really suit the current team).

If Hatakka can provide cheap value (I think he can), it allows us to move a higher profile prospect. You can’t just hoard your prospects without making a push to the next level, that’s how you waste a teams prime.

On the flipside, you can't trade prospects before knowing the team is ready for a push. That's how you end up with an Erat situation. Right now, with Ruff, it's so damn uncertain still.

 

[Triumph]

I think it's interesting that over the past few years the biggest complaint was that we were a fast, soft, finesse team who needed more size, more puck possession, and more shooters. Not that we've made an effort to get those guys like Meier and Toffoli, people complain that they're bad fits and that the team is better without them.

I feel like we're stuck in this weird no mans land at the moment. We used to be a one dimensional team, but at least we had a solid identity and executed it very well. We were the fast team that rolled 4 lines and skated you into the ground. offense supported the defense with speed, defense supported the offense with speed. This season, I don't really know what our identity is. We aren't the team with the killer speed we saw in previous years (Colorado skated circles around us last night), but we aren't a forechecking puck possession team either. We try to split the difference and end up doing a mediocre job at both.

McLeod, Wood, Sharangovich, Zetterlund, that's a lot of speed gone from the roster in the past year and they've all been replaced by much slower players. When Jack/Bratt/Nico is also out of the lineup, it's even more apparent. There's still enough talent on this roster to win some games, even without Jack and Dougie. But I do feel like Fitz overcorrected a bit. In his attempt to make us more well rounded, we sacrificed what made us great in previous years.

The decisions to move on from Wood, Sharangovich, etc were all correct in a vacuum, but those moves chipped away at our team speed and moved further and further away from what made last year's team great. Compare to guys like Haula and Lazar - both are tenacious vets with position flexibility, but they don't sacrifice speed to do so. Both were/are really great fits that worked within the existing identity of the team. Hopefully as Luke, Nemec, and Holtz continue to grow and get more responsibility we'll see some of that speed return (throw Gritsyuk and Casey in there too).Even with Jack in the lineup we were struggling to win consistently - honestly Jack saved us from our own mediocrity more than I think many of us would like to admit.

I also think there are quite a few players on this roster who don't understand exactly what is and what isn't expected about them. Guys like Mercer, Holtz, Haula, Bastian are getting ping-ponged all throughout the lineup. For young players this is especially bad. I get that it's a matter of injuries and circumstance, but when you have slower players like Bastian and Palat in your top-6 it totally kills the speed of the other guys they're playing with. Those guys need to be out there with similar speed players, otherwise they're an anchor for the entire line.

Perhaps it is as simple as getting a coach in here who will actually play to his teams strengths. I don't think we're in terrible shape or anything, we are still set up exceptionally well in the medium and long term. But it kinda sucks to see us wasting these awesome RFA bargain contracts with players and coaches that don't really know how to get out of their own way. Last year's team had obvious flaws, but I would rather a team that knows who it is. I don't know what the Devils identity is this season.

I think the speed thing is a bit overblown - Zetterlund is not faster than Meier, not even close IMO, but Meier has been playing injured most of the year and so it's easy to think that he is. Losing McLeod definitely hurts especially on a night like last night. But the team has been up and down all year and winning and losing in different ways. They're not giving up the 2 on 1s and breakaways in the same way as much, I think. Part of that is because Jack Hughes hasn't been playing for the last little while and the team has tightened up defensively as a result.

The thing is, isolating someone like Palat who has been offensively meh but whose territorial numbers look excellent doesn't make sense to me. Haula and Lazar are also excellent territorially. The team is coming around, slowly - the problems have been, outside of the crease which I won't address, in no particular order -

A: Meier being awful most of the year

B: Smith-Hughes being an abysmal pairing that stayed together way too long

C: Mercer not really doing a whole lot, especially not as a center

D: Everyone beyond the 13th forward have had pretty much awful results - even Tierney is close to above water now, but everyone else who has come up from Utica is nowhere close, especially Willman

We've seen guys have good and bad runs. Smith looked awful with Hughes, fine-ish with Nemec. Bastian was washed according to this forum in the first half, now he's put together a streak of good games in 2024. Toffoli looked like a definite re-sign in the first 2 months and has looked pretty bad in the next 2 months. So, it's just a question of can we get most of these guys on their ups and also avoid some of the systematic breakdowns.

 

[JimEIV]

This is a bad example because Norris Trophies are often won based on reputation, and so that creates a sort of backlog of deserving winners.

The trend of D men lasting well into their late 30s as exceptional seems to have slowed of late, obviously in the 90s-00s we had Stevens, Bourque, MacInnis and others, and later on guys like Blake and Pronger and Lidstrom lasted a very long time, but we're seeing less of that - Burns is still at a high level and Karlsson's had his ups and downs, Letang's still real good, but there's just not that many 35+ D playing great these days.

Regardless of the quality of the example, a player is much more likely to hit the pinnacle of his career offensively at 22 (a young age)than defensively.

And most if not all of the young defenders that have won the Norris are being awarded the trophy based almost entirely on offense....just like Quinn will be this year and Makar and Fox were previously

 

[Darkauron]

I think this season comes down to goaltending first and then injuries more than anything. When we are healthy, we are good, but we've had a TON more injuries this year compared to last year. We were mostly lucky with injuries compared to last year when we made the playoffs.

 

[Triumph]

Regardless of the quality of the example, a player is much more likely to hit the pinnacle of his career offensively at 22 (a young age)than defensively.

And most if not all of the young defenders that have won the Norris are being awarded the trophy based almost entirely on offense....just like Quinn will be this year and Makar and Fox were previously

You should just ignore the Norris Trophy entirely. You've said that older players win it and now you're saying that the young players win it because of offense. Everybody wins it because of offense. I would be shocked if anyone won it during my hockey-watching lifetime who wasn't top ten in points by a defenseman. Yeah, defense will sometimes get a guy with lower scoring over the finish line and some high scoring D never won one, but Stevens got the most votes in the year where he had his best offensive year (relatively).

 

[JimEIV]

You should just ignore the Norris Trophy entirely. You've said that older players win it and now you're saying that the young players win it because of offense. Everybody wins it because of offense. I would be shocked if anyone won it during my hockey-watching lifetime who wasn't top ten in points by a defenseman. Yeah, defense will sometimes get a guy with lower scoring over the finish line and some high scoring D never won one, but Stevens got the most votes in the year where he had his best offensive year (relatively).

No. The Norris is important...I don't know his exact finish but chara wasn't close to a leading D scorer when won in 2009.

I'll check where he finished

Edit: Chara was 12th in D scoring when he won in 2009 at 31 years old.

 

[Triumph]

No. The Norris is important...I don't know his exact finish but chara wasn't close to a leading D scorer when won in 2009.

I'll check where he finished

Edit: Chara was 12th in D scoring when he won in 2009 at 31 years old.

Hey, great, your one example from 15 years ago finished 12th, according to you. That's nice. It's still one of his highest scoring seasons, and he's going to be a slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he won 1 Norris Trophy, whereas several other guys who've won 1 or even multiple will not be that.

 

[Guttersniped]

This is ridiculous trade talk. Just crack pipe-level stuff.

Hanifin and then Saros, or a Hanifin/Markstom package.

 

[JimEIV]

Hey, great, your one example from 15 years ago finished 12th, according to you. That's nice. It's still one of his highest scoring seasons, and he's going to be a slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he won 1 Norris Trophy, whereas several other guys who've won 1 or even multiple will not be that.

Doughty was 9th in D scoring when he won in 2016....not out of the top 10 but yeah.

 

[Guttersniped]

Offense and skill are much less dependent on experience. In fact, you can argue time is more of an enemy to offense.

That vast majority of the top 50 all time single season points leaders are under 25...I think it's only 5 of the top 50 are over 30....now go look at the Norris Trophy winners, it's almost exactly the opposite.

Not offense in general, for instance older players do better on the PP.

Elite goal scoring typically peaks very early though.

 

[JimEIV]

Not offense in general, for instance older players do better on the PP.

Elite goal scoring typically peaks very early though.

I didn't know that older players do better on the PP. Is there any analysis on that I can read? Kind of interested...makes sense in the same way defense is more of an acquired skill from reps and the ability to make quicker reads.

 

[Guttersniped]

I didn't know that older players do better on the PP. Is there any analysis on that I can read? Kind of interested...makes sense in the same way defense is more of an acquired skill from reps and the ability to make quicker reads.

There is somewhere. I can try to dig it up later.

IIRC There’s a question how much of that is helpful veteran experience (or whatever) vs older players simply getting more power play time.

 

[The Wumpus]

Hanafin makes 0 sense.

-Expensive UFA rental
-If we had room to sign him long term, we'd have just kept Sevo
-Have to sign Hughes and Nemec in consecutive summers, both will get $$$
-Salaries go up when cap goes up, not as much room as it seems like

No room for Hanafin long term, not paying for him as a rental.

 

[JimEIV]

Is there any chance at all Hamilton is back this year?

 

[Mgd31]

The idea of Hanifin is cool but I think its buoyed up his name/draft pedigree. He's a good player, don't get me wrong, but he is going to cost more than Severson did.

I guess we could fit him if we trade Siegenthaler, but we kind of need a defenseman more in the mold of a Siegenthaler (I know his play stinks this year) than Hanifin, given the makeup of the team.