Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023 offseason part II

[JrFischer54]

I had to look up to see if he was still playing anymore. He hasn’t played since 19-20 in the EIHL. He’s now 34.

A lot of these guys aren’t even that old and haven’t been playing for years.

32 year old Urbom apparently hasn’t played since 20-21 and it was only 4 games that year in Austria.

Burlon is 33 and hasn’t played since 19-20 in both Sweden and Austria. They don’t have him listed anywhere for 18-19. Perhaps an injury that kept him out for an entire year?

Bergfors last played in Sweden in 21-22. He’s now 36.

33 year old Tedenby did play this past year in Sweden, but only scored 3 goals in 35 games. He was averaging at least double digits every year before that.

tedenby good lord what a freaking bum that guy was

 

[JrFischer54]

Imagine if one of the "throw in" players in the Timo trade also became a player?

Would be cool to see.

i know it probably happens a lot but its weird seeing family doing business like that in the nhl esp when they aren't on the same professional level.

 

[My3Sons]

No Swedes at all in NJ, please.

Regards,
Their lovely neighbour, Finland

Those twinkies and fried lard balls are going to your brain. Loosen that ten gallon hat so some blood gets back up there.

 

[Triumph]

Nostalgic about the bad times, I dig it.

Kovalchuk was the most electrifying moment type of player we had for a looooong time until Jack arrived. By electrifying moment type of player I mean that when he picked up the puck in our end or in the NZ and he carried the puck and walk a defenseman or whatever you'd inch closer to the edge of your seat hoping to see something awesome and he delivered a lot of times.

Taylor Hall erasure, he mostly only did it for one season but he was at this level too.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Until reading that article, had no idea Hatakka had actually already played 9 games for the Sharks. Cool that he already got his feet wet and there's at least hopefully some potential there that he already got a look with the big club.

Uncovering a gem along with bringing Timo into the fold would be incredible.

 

[MadDevil]

Johnny OT. And he would have had more if he hadn't been Wilson'd for 20 games that season.

The weird thing is he only actually had one OT goal that season. He had 3 in 2015-16 (he had 4 total goals all season) and 2 in 2017-18.

 

[GeNeXt]

Until reading that article, had no idea Hatakka had actually already played 9 games for the Sharks. Cool that he already got his feet wet and there's at least hopefully some potential there that he already got a look with the big club.

Uncovering a gem along with bringing Timo into the fold would be incredible.

One thing I didn't give much thought about until seeing this article is that this is a geat thing for Vilen's transition to North America, and Utica could have a Finnish D-pair rolling.

 

[Rhodes 81]

Vojtek Mozik, Egor Yakovlev, Yohann Auvitu, Raman Hrabarenka, Karl Stollery

Joe Whitney, Matt Anderson, Harri Pesonen, Sergei Kalinin, Jim O'Brien, Luke Gazdic

I can't believe we all watched ~800 games of that between 2012 and 2022. Hoping that maybe next year Josefson would finally break out.

I watched a decade of the Thrashers having even more futility than this before being subjected to this shit. The fact that I'm still a hockey fan at all is a small miracle owed mostly to Hossa and Kovalchuk willing a trash team into the playoffs once in 10 years, just to be swept by the Rangers.

There was a great quote from Don Waddell once where someone was asking him about not claiming some guy on waivers. The question was something along the lines of "Couldn't he have been a good option for the 4th line?" Waddell just looked at him and said "I think we've got too many good options for the 4th line already." It was a solid decade of rolling out one decent line and three lines of dudes that probably wouldn't be playing for a contender. What a f***ing mess. In some of the later years, we had such high hopes for guys like Bergfors, Nik Antropov, Evginy Artyukhin, Rich Peverley, Eric Perrin. Todd White was probably the best center in franchise history outside of the couple years of Savard. The best D we ever had was Toby Enstrom. If you have to Google to remember who half of these people are, you would be forgiven.

Compared to that, rooting for Josefson and Tedenby to put it together was easy.

God, he was such a f***ing tank. I know it's a hot topic with Jack now but Kovy as a player overall might be the most gifted player we've seen. Him, Jack, Mogliny in some order. Think Jack eventually jumps him in the future.

It absolutely would have been stealing the series, but we came so close to tying up games 1 and 2 late against the Kings in 2012 IIRC. I wonder how different his legacy here would be if we had won the cup that year. Marty probably would have got the Conn Smythe, but there's no denying Kovalchuk was leading the charge among skaters.

Jack will almost certainly be remembered as our best forward by the time he hangs them up, but Kovy in his prime was just so different than the rest of the league.

Imagine if one of the "throw in" players in the Timo trade also became a player?

Would be cool to see.

I remember seeing him included and thinking that there was some chance he could end up being depth, but admittedly that's only because I actually knew who he was. Losing basically an entire season of development at that age is rough, but if he even ends up being solid for the AHL that's a win as a throw-in player.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

 

[Classic Devil]

We have a ridiculous riches of depth at LHD at the near-NHL level. A lot of potential players on that list.

 

[Billdo]

Taylor Hall erasure, he mostly only did it for one season but he was at this level too.

Eh, he was terrific don't get me wrong but Kovalchuk to me was on another level.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

This is what being a fan of a team that has 18 total goals from defensemen does to you. It breaks a person.

This is both funny and exactly correct. It’s what having Paul Martin as your best offensive D, with Tyler Eckford and Matt Corrente waiting in the wings, does to a fanbase.

 

[Cheddabombs]

Holy shit it's happening

 

[Devs3cups]

 

[Devs3cups]

Aisle or window when travelling… on a plane… Jets… Helluybuck?

 

[Devils731]

I thought the Devils main account was just setting up the 3 on 3 scrimmage but now there is either something interesting going on or masterful trolling.

I’m good with either.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

I watched a decade of the Thrashers having even more futility than this before being subjected to this shit. The fact that I'm still a hockey fan at all is a small miracle owed mostly to Hossa and Kovalchuk willing a trash team into the playoffs once in 10 years, just to be swept by the Rangers.

There was a great quote from Don Waddell once where someone was asking him about not claiming some guy on waivers. The question was something along the lines of "Couldn't he have been a good option for the 4th line?" Waddell just looked at him and said "I think we've got too many good options for the 4th line already." It was a solid decade of rolling out one decent line and three lines of dudes that probably wouldn't be playing for a contender. What a f***ing mess. In some of the later years, we had such high hopes for guys like Bergfors, Nik Antropov, Evginy Artyukhin, Rich Peverley, Eric Perrin. Todd White was probably the best center in franchise history outside of the couple years of Savard. The best D we ever had was Toby Enstrom. If you have to Google to remember who half of these people are, you would be forgiven.

Reminds me of when Eric Boulton scored a hat trick on us in the misery that was the 2010/2011 first half and then Lou f***ing signed him in the following offseason lmao

 

[NJDevs26]

Reminds me of when Eric Boulton scored a hat trick on us in the misery that was the 2010/2011 first half and then Lou f***ing signed him in the following offseason lmao

He deserved that contract for getting Mac fired lol

 

[Rhodes 81]

Reminds me of when Eric Boulton scored a hat trick on us in the misery that was the 2010/2011 first half and then Lou f***ing signed him in the following offseason lmao

lol, I remember being pretty stoked that we signed him that offseason too. Part of it was I just liked the random collection of ex-Thrashers we had but also he had generally been a decent player for an old-school enforcer, but the year with us he just dropped off a cliff. I'm sure these days I would have seen that coming but back then I was much more results oriented both with player evaluations and life in general.

 

[Bleedred]

I looked up Rem Vanderbeek (had no idea what he looked like and forgot I ever even heard of him until yesterday) and there's a picture of him with a big smile.

Guy looks about as much of a crook as his old man, which you could tell by his smile how much of a phony and crook (and huckster lol) he was.

''Blah blah blah, he was a good guy. Blah blah blah, he brought hockey/the Devils to Newark and we're only out of the dump in the swamp because of him''

''Blah blah blah, be thankful we had him and he didn't try to move the team to Nashville''

''Blah blah blah, worship Hucksterbeek''

 

[Devs3cups]

 

[Eggtimer]

Ok , when ya Helle trade to us going to be announced ?!??!

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

Reminds me of when Eric Boulton scored a hat trick on us in the misery that was the 2010/2011 first half and then Lou f***ing signed him in the following offseason lmao

and he didn’t have a single goal or POINT in 51 NHL games and 2 AHL games that season.

 

[njdevils1982]

I looked up Rem Vanderbeek (had no idea what he looked like and forgot I ever even heard of him until yesterday) and there's a picture of him with a big smile.

Guy looks about as much of a crook as his old man, which you could tell by his smile how much of a phony and crook (and huckster lol) he was.

''Blah blah blah, he was a good guy. Blah blah blah, he brought hockey/the Devils to Newark and we're only out of the dump in the swamp because of him''

''Blah blah blah, be thankful we had him and he didn't try to move the team to Nashville''

''Blah blah blah, worship Hucksterbeek''

what in hell kind of stats are these? 1 game and 4 games over 2 seasons at college?

 

[Hisch13r]

Hall’s Hart year is the best single Devils season ever.