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

[DevilsHughes86]

Devils seem done to me except possibly a goalie since Schmid is waiver exempt. They have 1.9m in cap space today, will be 8.9m at the deadline. If Schmid/Vanecek falter maybe you can swing a deal for Hellebuyck at the deadine when Winnipeg is forced to move him or lose him. At least a deal could be made for a competent backup/1B if necessary.

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Yup, looks like we will be patient and see what happens with our goalie situation. Hopefully Vanecek has a great start to the season and we can even move him in a trade to Winnipeg. Would be sweet to acquire Helle and Nino after the holidays

 

[Guadana]

Our Proud History in Contract Efficiency:

NHL contract efficiency rankings: Grading every team in the league

The best and worst contracts are the most interesting but those are teasers for a this project where the league is graded on a whole.

theathletic.com

Spoiler: August 3, 2022 #11

View attachment 732562

By the numbers: Grading every NHL team’s contract efficiency, 2021 edition

We’ve gone over the league’s best and worst contracts now it's time to grade each team’s total contract efficiency.

theathletic.com

(AKA back when Dom whined about Nico’s deal.)

Spoiler: August 12, 2021 #11

11. New Jersey Devils​

Last season: 17th
View attachment 732563

Every NHL team's contracts graded by efficiency

It's time to hand out grades for each NHL team’s total contract efficiency.

theathletic.com

Spoiler: Nov 6, 2020 #17

17. New Jersey Devils​

Last year: 21st

View attachment 732567

By the numbers: Grading every team’s contract efficiency

A ranking of every NHL contract in an attempt to figure out which teams are the most efficient with the money they spend.

theathletic.com

And the article that started it all.

Spoiler: July 19, 2019 #21

Dom was still figuring out the format, he didn’t actually number the list. We also have almost no long term deals (one really).
#21 Devils
View attachment 732571

I’m also posting Arizona here, people can ignore this, but I’ve just enjoyed how Dom had always shat on their long term RFA deals and then is surprised when they “grow into them” a year or two later.

Spoiler: Arizona through the years

2019
View attachment 732573



2020

26. Arizona Coyotes​

Last year: 27th

View attachment 732569

2021​

24. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 26th
View attachment 732564

2022

27. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 24th

View attachment 732565



2023

9. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 27th
View attachment 732566

Marino and McLeod have negative value? Pathetic.

 

[Guadana]

Say what you want about Shero but the Hall trade got us Mercer, Siegs and Bahl. Of course the Devils needed to hit on Mercer but still…..can’t get much better than that, folks. And to think….just how different this franchise would look right now if Shero did sign Hall long term. Dodging bullets….

Its not his success. You are messing what was going on with what you are trying to tell. It was a luck Mercer was available(and it was Fitz who drafted him), and its a Fitz who traded Sigenthaler. Shero would traded D'Angelo and would spend 2nd round pick.

As It was million times before with Shero, it wasn't success, it was result of his failure of his plan to build good team around Hall, and Devils were lucky to have Fitz, who converted pieces of this trade into good nhl players.

 

[MartyOwns]

Say what you want about Shero but the Hall trade got us Mercer, Siegs and Bahl. Of course the Devils needed to hit on Mercer but still…..can’t get much better than that, folks. And to think….just how different this franchise would look right now if Shero did sign Hall long term. Dodging bullets….

the things shero didn’t do are why we’re in such a good spot now, capwise and everything else. if he signed some middling, over the hill defensemen to long term deals to appease fisherman on this forum, we’d be f***ed. shero deserves a statue. had he not been so stubborn about hynes, he’d probably still be here.

 

[Bleedred]

the things shero didn’t do are why we’re in such a good spot now, capwise and everything else. if he signed some middling, over the hill defensemen to long term deals to appease fisherman on this forum, we’d be f***ed. shero deserves a statue. had he not been so stubborn about hynes, he’d probably still be here.

I agreed until the statue part.

I think he would have been gone after 2022 if we didn’t make the playoffs. That would have been 6 playoff misses in 7 years. Assuming we don’t make the playoffs those last two years he hypothetically would have gotten.

 

[RSeen]

Bahl at $1.05M for two years is great. Getting that 2nd year is definitely a big plus if he continues to grow.

 

[Guadana]

the gratuitous and inadequate love for shero, who incompetently did his job without any plan, constantly squandering the team's picks without a prospect pool, should be studied and a new shero syndrome like Stockholm should be named. Lou was so bad in the end of his tenure that the general manager who fails his plan for all points, making wrong steps for his wrong strategy, still causes warm feelings among devils fans. up to the point of wanting to build a statue to him. he deserved only a plaque with a built-in spittoon.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

the gratuitous and inadequate love for shero, who incompetently did his job without any plan, constantly squandering the team's picks without a prospect pool, should be studied and a new shero syndrome like Stockholm should be named. Lou was so bad in the end of his tenure that the general manager who fails his plan for all points, making wrong steps for his wrong strategy, still causes warm feelings among devils fans. up to the point of wanting to build a statue to him. he deserved only a plaque with a built-in spittoon.

look I don't love Shero but what picks did he "squander"? A couple of extra 2nd round picks? that wouldn't have changed anything.

Lets at least be fair here.

 

[Triumph]

the gratuitous and inadequate love for shero, who incompetently did his job without any plan, constantly squandering the team's picks without a prospect pool, should be studied and a new shero syndrome like Stockholm should be named. Lou was so bad in the end of his tenure that the general manager who fails his plan for all points, making wrong steps for his wrong strategy, still causes warm feelings among devils fans. up to the point of wanting to build a statue to him. he deserved only a plaque with a built-in spittoon.

Both sides are wrong about this one - Shero was fine. He was deservedly fired, but he never traded a 1st round pick and never saddled the team with a long-term contract that would seriously hamper the franchise. He traded a couple more 2nd round picks than any of us would've liked on deals that didn't do enough, but that's the bucket Lou put him in, and you can only do the job you've been hired to do - Shero never said he was doing a to-the-studs rebuild.

 

[Guadana]

look I don't love Shero but what picks did he "squander"? A couple of extra 2nd round picks? that wouldn't have changed anything.

Lets at least be fair here.

Seriously? He traded tonns of picks and loset their value in trades after. Team had no prospect pool depth. It would have changed a lot. It wasn't a time to trade second and third round picks. And if he someway decided that it was, he should signed more free agent on short/not long term deals. As I said before, I m ok with his 2017 off-season, because even if I'm not agree with his strategy, at least he made a lot of moves to make it happened. I didn't asked wins and success, I asked smart management with strong and clear strategy and moves to make it happen. Shero made wrong decision when decided to retool and even with retooling he didn't make enough work on the market and decided to ship his picks mostly.

And like I said before, we have only Hughes, Hishier, Bratt, McLeod and Bastian from his 5 years. Two players were 1OA when team tried to win play off spot(luck after failure), two are fourth liners. Its a pure failure. There are no reason to praise.
Its like we can say that Fletcher was good because he drafted Gauthier.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

That Bahl deal is very good. I think we see a PTO or two as well, think this ends our offseason currently and Hellebuyck starts in WPG.

 

[Guadana]

Both sides are wrong about this one - Shero was fine. He was deservedly fired, but he never traded a 1st round pick and never saddled the team with a long-term contract that would seriously hamper the franchise. He traded a couple more 2nd round picks than any of us would've liked on deals that didn't do enough, but that's the bucket Lou put him in, and you can only do the job you've been hired to do - Shero never said he was doing a to-the-studs rebuild.

He wasn't. Wrong strategy, wrong decisions to make it happen. A lot of gambles. Awful understanding of defensive building. 5 players in the roster after 5 years in the moment. Schmid should be sixth.
No, thanks, he was bad. But first trade of hall was good and fun, Hughes and Hishier were good picks even after the failure of his strategy for those seasons. That's all

 

[Triumph]

Seriously? He traded tonns of picks and loset their value in trades after. Team had no prospect pool depth. It would have changed a lot. It wasn't a time to trade second and third round picks. And if he someway decided that it was, he should signed more free agent on short/not long term deals. As I said before, I m ok with his 2017 off-season, because even if I'm not agree with his strategy, at least he made a lot of moves to make it happened. I didn't asked wins and success, I asked smart management with strong and clear strategy and moves to make it happen. Shero made wrong decision when decided to retool and even with retooling he didn't make enough work on the market and decided to ship his picks mostly.

He didn't trade most of his picks. The Devils had a surplus of picks during the years Shero had control over whether or not that was true, and they had a surplus of picks after he was gone because of what was put in place.

And like I said before, we have only Hughes, Hishier, Bratt, McLeod and Bastian from his 5 years. Two players were 1OA when team tried to win play off spot(luck after failure), two are fourth liners. Its a pure failure. There are no reason to praise.
Its like we can say that Fletcher was good because he drafted Gauthier.

This is a fatuous comparison because most of what the Devils have now is from players drafted by Shero. Sharangovich isn't here anymore, but he and a 3rd round pick (from a contract signed by Shero) were sent off to get Toffoli. Ty Smith's not here anymore, but he and a 3rd were enough to pry John Marino loose.

 

[HBK27]

the gratuitous and inadequate love for shero, who incompetently did his job without any plan, constantly squandering the team's picks without a prospect pool, should be studied and a new shero syndrome like Stockholm should be named. Lou was so bad in the end of his tenure that the general manager who fails his plan for all points, making wrong steps for his wrong strategy, still causes warm feelings among devils fans. up to the point of wanting to build a statue to him. he deserved only a plaque with a built-in spittoon.

I mostly liked Shero at the time, but in hindsight...yeah, while he was an improvement over Lou's later years, his tenure was not great with NJ.

Perhaps the best thing he did was bring in Paul Castron. Or actually, maybe Fitz.

Looking at a few of his bigger trades:
- Solid start trading for Palmieri
- A+ for the Larsson/Hall swap
- Wasted a good amount of 2nd/3rd round picks on the likes of Mueller, Johannson, Subban & Gusev
- Hall trade was solid, largely because we hit on the Mercer pick and Bahl looks good

The Grabner trade was one of my least favorite Devils trades at the time and Subban isn't far behind. Definitely feels like Shero tried to rush things and a lot of the moves that seemed decent at the time did not pay off.

Regardless, it all got us to where this team is now, which is damn exciting.

 

[Blackjack]

The moustache is back in Europe.

Very fashionista.

Bratt looks like he just walked off an audition for Peaky Blinders

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

trading a couple of extra 2nd or 3rd round picks is nothing. those picks have a better shot of becoming nothing than becoming something. They probably tried to fast track things after they made the playoffs in 2018, which might have been a mistake, but still.

If he had traded multiple firsts for 28 year olds or something, sure I would be all over him too. I was mostly fine with the trades he made. He also got Palmieri, got Hall, etc etc. Also, take a look at the draft picks under him. Hischier, Bratt, Joey Anderson (got us an NHLer for a year+), Boqvist, Zetterlund, ty Smith (got us Marino), Sharangovich (late round pick turned into middle 6 player, got us Toffoli).

 

[Guadana]

He didn't trade most of his picks. The Devils had a surplus of picks during the years Shero had control over whether or not that was true, and they had a surplus of picks after he was gone because of what was put in place.


This is a fatuous comparison because most of what the Devils have now is from players drafted by Shero. Sharangovich isn't here anymore, but he and a 3rd round pick (from a contract signed by Shero) were sent off to get Toffoli. Ty Smith's not here anymore, but he and a 3rd were enough to pry John Marino loose.

You are trying to give credit to Shero for what Fitz did. It was Fitz who traded horrible defenseman Smith for good defenseman Marino, it was Fitz who traded Sharangovich who losted his roster spot. Sharangovich was good pick, but again I'm praising scouts for late good picks.


Shero traded a lot of picks, especially for a team without prospect pool he listed value of picks in later trades. We didn't have 2nds in 20, 21 and 18 as I remember, all because of Shero. Three seconds after 5 years He didn't signed enough free agents to trade then after, and when he did - it worked pretty well.
And we even don't talk about his defensive building disaster(on the market, on the draft), lack of signs on the open market for a team without depth with trying to compete,(again I prefer to not trade picks and try to rebuild, but its Shero who tried to retool and didn't make enough movements to make it hapoen), we are not talking about his wishful thinking in trades, about Hynes etc.
He was close to be horrible. And if he would draft Kakko "or" Nolan Patrick( or "and") - his name would be synonym of the worst/the failurest gm ever. He was in one step from that.
He didn't, so he was just bad.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Again, you are really overrating 2nd round picks. They really aren't that valuable in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Blackjack]

Our Proud History in Contract Efficiency:

NHL contract efficiency rankings: Grading every team in the league

The best and worst contracts are the most interesting but those are teasers for a this project where the league is graded on a whole.

theathletic.com

Spoiler: August 3, 2022 #11

View attachment 732562

By the numbers: Grading every NHL team’s contract efficiency, 2021 edition

We’ve gone over the league’s best and worst contracts now it's time to grade each team’s total contract efficiency.

theathletic.com

(AKA back when Dom whined about Nico’s deal.)

Spoiler: August 12, 2021 #11

11. New Jersey Devils​

Last season: 17th
View attachment 732563

Every NHL team's contracts graded by efficiency

It's time to hand out grades for each NHL team’s total contract efficiency.

theathletic.com

Spoiler: Nov 6, 2020 #17

17. New Jersey Devils​

Last year: 21st

View attachment 732567

By the numbers: Grading every team’s contract efficiency

A ranking of every NHL contract in an attempt to figure out which teams are the most efficient with the money they spend.

theathletic.com

And the article that started it all.

Spoiler: July 19, 2019 #21

Dom was still figuring out the format, he didn’t actually number the list. We also have almost no long term deals (one really).
#21 Devils
View attachment 732571

I’m also posting Arizona here, people can ignore this, but I’ve just enjoyed how Dom had always shat on their long term RFA deals and then is surprised when they “grow into them” a year or two later.

Spoiler: Arizona through the years

2019
View attachment 732573



2020

26. Arizona Coyotes​

Last year: 27th

View attachment 732569

2021​

24. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 26th
View attachment 732564

2022

27. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 24th

View attachment 732565



2023

9. Arizona Coyotes​

Last season: 27th
View attachment 732566

Arizona got a lot of help from greater fools Montreal and Vancouver. I was skimming the history so maybe I’m wrong but it seems like a lot of their inefficiency was in Dvorak and OEL which they were able to offload for pretty amazing returns.

 

[Guadana]

I mostly liked Shero at the time, but in hindsight...yeah, while he was an improvement over Lou's later years, his tenure was not great with NJ.

Perhaps the best thing he did was bring in Paul Castron. Or actually, maybe Fitz.

Looking at a few of his bigger trades:
- Solid start trading for Palmieri
- A+ for the Larsson/Hall swap
- Wasted a good amount of 2nd/3rd round picks on the likes of Mueller, Johannson, Subban & Gusev
- Hall trade was solid, largely because we hit on the Mercer pick and Bahl looks good

The Grabner trade was one of my least favorite Devils trades at the time and Subban isn't far behind. Definitely feels like Shero tried to rush things and a lot of the moves that seemed decent at the time did not pay off.

Regardless, it all got us to where this team is now, which is damn exciting.

Same thing. Its okay to change the mind, I was pro Shero guy for some time. Its just okay to rethink about, be critical and analyze more. Reason why I'm not praising Fitz for Nemec. Its a good pick, but team tried to compete.

Second Hall trade wasn't really good, it was Fitz, who made this trade great. Shero traded on good Arizona team in the moment, it was luck they losted Kuemper after injury and than they won it against Hynes and Nashville. But Devils and Fitz were lucky for Mercer being available. Fitz made right decision there. He could make need pick and take Schneider and we could see Mercer in rangers jersey. In theory - they could not make a trade because cgy(as I remember, may be it was the different team) would prefer to draft Mercer by themselves.

Castron was very good but wasn't perfect
Reason why Fitz signed Dennehy as chief scout. Their chl scout promoted Smith McLeod and Stillman, they fired him, but Castron was head scout in the moment who approved it. Anyway I'm happy that Shero hired Castron, overall we should be happy with his work.

 

[njdevil26]

Bahl at $1.05M for two years is great. Getting that 2nd year is definitely a big plus if he continues to grow.

How can he grow more?! He's a giant!!!!

(I know what you mean)

 

[Guadana]

Again, you are really overrating 2nd round picks. They really aren't that valuable in the grand scheme of things.

Tell it to stars fans.

 

[MartyOwns]

He wasn't. Wrong strategy, wrong decisions to make it happen. A lot of gambles. Awful understanding of defensive building. 5 players in the roster after 5 years in the moment. Schmid should be sixth.
No, thanks, he was bad. But first trade of hall was good and fun, Hughes and Hishier were good picks even after the failure of his strategy for those seasons. That's all

i love the ‘awful defense building’ argument lol. i bet it was a lot easier for fitz to focus on the defense when shero had largely taken care of the offense. go look at our forward depth (or hell, our entire team’s depth) when shero started vs when he left.

lou left shero with a pile of stones to build a mansion with. he somehow managed to build the first floor and is chastised for not building the second one at the same time. just unreal how delusional some people are.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I know its the dog days of summer, but I really hate re-hashing this Shero stuff. To say he was "historically bad" or whatever it was you said is just not true. You have to keep in mind how he acquired those extra picks. Again, he wasn't great, but he wasn't TERRIBLE.

- traded for Kyle Palmieri, who was a consistent 25-30 goal scorer in NJ
- traded Lee Stempniak for a 2nd and a 4th
- traded Eric Gelinas for a 3rd (which became Zetterlund)
- got a free 2nd round pick for taking on Savard
- traded for a future NHL MVP by trading Adam Larsson (whom we all love, and I still love...but still)
- traded for Vatanen, who played big minutes for us for a few years
- traded Brian Boyle for a 2nd round pick
- traded for Marcus Johnasson, then basically re-couped exactly what he traded for him

Like I said, I think Shero thought we were closer than we were given the 2018 playoff run, which was basically just Taylor Hall carrying the team and Keith Kinkaid having a completely unsustainable few month stretch. And for that, yes he was definitely wrong. But he did some good things, and some bad things. And he isn't here anymore and we don't have to worry about him anymore, so whatever.

 

[Andre Palot]

I know its the dog days of summer, but I really hate re-hashing this Shero stuff. To say he was "historically bad" or whatever it was you said is just not true. You have to keep in mind how he acquired those extra picks. Again, he wasn't great, but he wasn't TERRIBLE.

- traded for Kyle Palmieri, who was a consistent 25-30 goal scorer in NJ
- traded Lee Stempniak for a 2nd and a 4th
- traded Eric Gelinas for a 3rd (which became Zetterlund)
- got a free 2nd round pick for taking on Savard
- traded for a future NHL MVP by trading Adam Larsson (whom we all love, and I still love...but still)
- traded for Vatanen, who played big minutes for us for a few years
- traded Brian Boyle for a 2nd round pick
- traded for Marcus Johnasson, then basically re-couped exactly what he traded for him

Like I said, I think Shero thought we were closer than we were given the 2018 playoff run, which was basically just Taylor Hall carrying the team and Keith Kinkaid having a completely unsustainable few month stretch. And for that, yes he was definitely wrong. But he did some good things, and some bad things. And he isn't here anymore and we don't have to worry about him anymore, so whatever.

Anyone who thinks Shero was 'historically bad' is really, really doing their best to distort the truth.

If we had Chuck Fletcher instead of Shero, we would have no doubt seen 'historically bad'