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

[Bleedred]

Man Holtz has really fallen off a cliff according to that list.

I'm assuming their list doesn't consider Holtz or Schmid prospects anymore, possibly due to a certain number of NHL games played.

 

[Brodeur]

Man Holtz has really fallen off a cliff according to that list.

NHL Network's somewhat arbitrary definition of a prospect:

- Age 25 or younger
- Skater with fewer than 25 NHL games (including playoffs) -- Holtz has 28
- Goalie with fewer than 15 NHL games (including playoffs) -- hence no Schmid

 

[Eggtimer]

I'm assuming their list doesn't consider Holtz or Schmid prospects anymore, possibly due to a certain number of NHL games played.

Ya I’m guessing it’s based off of NHL games played . I thought Clarke player some NHL games so far but not sure how many . Obviously not enough for the sake of this list

 

[Brodeur]

Anyone here play puckdoku? Whats the most random player you could think of for the NJD/USA square? I went for the legendary

Spoiler

Bobby Butler

I got a little thrown off by the "Team USA" designation and wasn't sure if that meant just American or played for Team USA at a tournament at some point. In case it was the latter, I went with an obscure one:

Spoiler

Until a few months back, I had no idea Ken Klee was on Team USA for the 2004 World Cup.

 

[Whaddagoal]

This season cannot begin fast enough.

I really preferred the positive nostalgia in this thread talk, vs. the shero debate lol....

Please lord let us get to October....

 

[Bleedred]

Ya I’m guessing it’s based off of NHL games played . I thought Clarke player some NHL games so far but not sure how many . Obviously not enough for the sake of this list

Clarke actually has not played NHL games yet.

But I had to check that for check that for confirmation, as I could have forgotten, with some of the garbage time call ups we had in 21-22.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

i truly, honestly, forgot about Chase Stillman until looking at this list

 

[Aurinko]

This season cannot begin fast enough.

I really preferred the positive nostalgia in this thread talk, vs. the shero debate lol....

Please lord let us get to October....

I just started to follow after short offseason break and I'm counting the minutes.

I'm not a real devils fan so I don't give a fak if the devils win the cup or not, but I truly feel that this team has been built with some serious love and I just want to see them play. What goes to playoff success I feel like Akira has all of the keys in his hands. Vitek is also fantastic guy, but I have a strong feel like Akira has the cows nerves to take the heat when the real games begin. For long time devils believers I'm guessing it's a big thing they got Luke the playoff games this year. It could mean good things for him, since for most young players seem to be just stat padders, but Luke saw how things could be and he could be the piece to turn everything around.

 

[Guttersniped]

How many 2nds have actually turned into useful players for us? Seamus Casey is looking like the first actual hit we've had since Damon Severson over a decade ago, and even then we didn't get Casey with our original pick since Fitz traded our original 2nd.

If you look at Shero's tenure specifically we're talking about Blackwood (traded for a 6th), Boqvist (not qualified), and Okhotiuk (traded to SJ). I guess all of those picks technically beat the field since they all turned into NHL games for us, but none of them have been instrumental in any way. I would rather have 5 years of Kyle Palmieri than wait three years just to realize I drafted another Boqvist.

And Fitz traded away 2nds too: 2nd + prospect for Graves, a 2nd + 3rd for Vanecek. Yet everyone applauded those deals. Why? Because we needed those players and had a surplus of quality draft capital. And the reason we had those quality prospects is from top-10 picks, since those are the picks that shape your core and define your franchise. Not 2nd rounders. And there was no way Shero was going to get extra 1sts because we didn't have any skaters worth a damn and he clearly didn't have permission to do a full tear-it-all-down rebuild.

So to pretend that we would have had Kaliyev, Stankoven, Durzi, or any other now well-regarded young player is just baseless wish casting. We have no idea who they would have taken, but given Shero's record in the 2nd round and Fitz's record in the late 1st round I'm certain the board would have hated whoever we took with those picks.

Early 2nd round picks have a lot more value than the rest.

If a different team’s GM pissed away this picks, and I mean really pissed them away, getting absolutely nothing from them after 2022, would people make excuses?

2019 2nd #34
2020 2nd #37
2020 3rd #68
2021 2nd #36

People seemed a lot harder on the lost assets in these in these trades:
To move Gostisbehere
2022 2nd #36
2022 7th #216
For Risto
2021 1st #14
2023 2nd #39
For DeAngelo
2022 4th #101
2023 3rd #71
2024 2nd
And no, it’s not just because of the 1st.

The NHL is made up of mostly 1st Rd players, then it’s 2nd round players and every other round trails that. Look at our team last year
1st (10): Jack, Luke, Nico, Hamilton, Foote, Holtz, Meier, Mercer, Lazar, Smith
2nd (9): Blackwood, Bastian, Bahl, Boqvist, Okhotiuk, Severson, Siegenthaler, Tatar, Vanacek
3 (1):Zetterlund
4 (3): Graves, Thompson, Wood
5 (2): Schmid, Sharongovich
6 (2): Bratt, Marino
7 (3): Haula, Johnsson, Palat

We lacked too much talent to do his bullshit late pick drafts and trades for complimentary pieces with limited team control.

This isn’t hindsight. I was done with Shero after the thin 2018 draft and trading away those 2nds for older guys 2-3 years away from UFA.

We didn’t have enough talent on the team, or in the prospect pool, and after that we didn’t have many high picks either.

You can’t rebuild a team through picks outside of the 2nd round, plus one 1st a year, but that’s what Shero was doing. It wasn’t a feasible approach to team building, we were spinning our wheels and wasting our time.

So we needed the Summer of Shero to implode and then dismantle everything he did. He wasn’t hilariously destructive or terrible like Fletcher but Yzerman is doing a better job in Detroit, he just doesn’t win any lotteries, but people here shit on him.

People get hung up on short term UFA signings, but those are free, you can’t just have prospects play on your team and you can flip them at the TDL. Trading for every vet was an unnecessary asset drain, I would have preferred shitty UFA deals.

Palmieri was a RFA and that was a great trade. The Mueller trade was bad, in the sense he sucked and everyone thought he would probably suck, but trading for a young RFA defenseman is a more defensible move.

It basically worked out in the end but sorry, he had to go. I’m standing by that call. I’m mean that way.

The last 2nds remain bitter because 1) It would have been nice to have had the option to trade up with the late 1sts.
2) While people love Stankoven (2021 #47), I don’t really care about the other years as much as 2020, that 2nd Rd was stacked.

The 2020 2nd Rounders at #37 (our pick) or later on who made Wheeler Top Drafted Prospects Honorable Mentions* list (77 players)
#37 Khusnutdinov C (MIN)
#38 Bordeleau C (SJS)
#42 Evangelista RW (NSH)
#45 Faber RHD (MIN)
#54 Andrae LHD (PHI)
Wheeler’s Top Ten Goalie Prospects
10th: #46 Drew Commesso (CHI)
27 Honorable Mentions
#52 Joel Blomqvist (PIT)

The other 2020 none 1st Rounders HM:
#32 Wallinder LHD (DET)
3rd Rd #68 Cormier LHD (VGK)
4th Rd #124 Farrell LW (MTL)


*Just FYI, The four 2nd Rounders in his top 50 are #21 Stankoven, #27 Hutson (2022 2nd #62), #28 Zellweger (2021 2nd #34) and #37 Christall (2023 2nd #40) in Wheeler’s Top 50. The other non-1st Rounder: #36 Nikishin (2020 3rd #69)

 

[StevenToddIves]

See, I actually don’t have any emotional investment in the “Lou = Bad and therefore Shero = Good” narrative so he isn’t weirdly bulletproof with me. Good Lord.

And winning the 1OA as the 5th and 3rd seed was literally luck.

Taking it on the chin is actually having the worst team in the NHL, we never did that. We were dumb lucky while sucking. Hell we won it as the 8th seed in 2011, we’re the luckiest team ever in the damn draft.

But context is not having 2nd round pick so we could trade up with our extra 1st in 2021. (That was traded for a player who was gone before that pick was even used.)

Or not having an early 2020 2nd pick to either trade up or just draft in the stacked early part of that round. Maybe we could have had a shutdown center prospect (Bordeleau) or RHD of @StevenToddIves dreams (Faber).

Let’s not forget sending Fitz down to observe Hynes for a month, then not firing him. Shero kind of deserved to get shitcanned just for that farce. Everyone knew Hynes would get fired during the next losing streak (and did).

But poor asset management and iffy team building was why he needed to go. But sure, boo hiss Lou. I’m having a some insomnia and I’m a bit cranky, but come now.

Shero’s a big boy, he can stand on his own two feet and get evaluated on his own work, and win points for just being the “anti-Lou”. They both rightly got shown the door. You don’t have to go to the mattresses for this guy because of 10 year old debates over Lou.

I think Shero did some good stuff around Hockey Ops but the idea of another season of him doing whatever he was doing… yikes.

Granted, the Schneider trade/contract arguably took out both Hynes and Shero, and was second worst thing Lou ever did, but that’s hockey for ya. (That’s the only problem contract that mattered once we had plenty of cap space.)

Ah, Brock Faber. Exhibit A on why, if I don't shut up about a draft-eligible defenseman, he's probably better than the consensus says he is. Feel free to bring up K'Andre Miller and Moritz Seider too, my ego needs more bloating.

 

[Nubmer6]

I just started to follow after short offseason break and I'm counting the minutes.

I'm not a real devils fan so I don't give a fak if the devils win the cup or not, but I truly feel that this team has been built with some serious love and I just want to see them play. What goes to playoff success I feel like Akira has all of the keys in his hands. Vitek is also fantastic guy, but I have a strong feel like Akira has the cows nerves to take the heat when the real games begin. For long time devils believers I'm guessing it's a big thing they got Luke the playoff games this year. It could mean good things for him, since for most young players seem to be just stat padders, but Luke saw how things could be and he could be the piece to turn everything around.

You like 'em now, you'll get to love them later

my ego needs more bloating

No.

Really

It doesn't

 

[Emperoreddy]

i truly, honestly, forgot about Chase Stillman until looking at this list

Imagine this is our last year of having a high ranked prospect pool with Luke graduating out. Obviously will still be good as we have more talent coming, but those sure fire superstar prospects will almost all be on the team after this offseason outside of Nemec

Also totally normal as players become NHL players and I imagine we would still rank very high in a U23 ranking

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

i truly, honestly, forgot about Chase Stillman until looking at this list

Imagine if they picked Stankoven, we'd have an embarrassment of riches right now. We still do but man, up front, that would be absurd.

 

[Guttersniped]

2nd round picks are very difficult to talk about because they are the second-most valuable thing the league just gives to teams, and they result in an average-ish or better NHL player something like 5%-10% of the time, with the top being closer to 15% and the bottom closer to 5%. So yeah, while a franchise can get away with trading away their 2nds frequently and not seeing a huge drop in team quality as a result, I still think it sucks that the Devils have only used 6 2nd round picks since 2015. We're starting to see some cracks in the prospect pool already and it's the kind of thing an additional 2nd round pick could've helped solve.

If you look at a classic non-1st Rd stud team, the 2011 Boston Cup team, what Rd did they come from?
Patrice Bergeron (2nd Rd BOS)
Milan Lucic (2nd Rd BOS)
David Krejci (2nd Rd BOS)

I’m not against trading picks, I just never saw us gaining the assets we needed and it was frustrating to see assets get shipped out at the same time.

Fitz trades picks! Sure, but Siegenthaler was a RFA, so no problem there. If we weren’t a playoff team or keeping him we could have flipped Graves at the TDL for quite a bit.

That 2nd was also the NYI 2021 2nd #61, which is a lot less sexy than the ones Shero traded away.

I will add, I believe Shero at first made a point of trading “extra” spare 2nds away, until he didn’t.

I simply stand by my call that if you are a GM of a lottery team that was the 3rd seed in the draft, and you currently have zero extra 1sts or 2nds, you shouldn’t be trading away your own next three 2nds.

I just don’t know why people won’t admit that was weird and bad because it was. You can even like other things he did (excellent hirings! Palmieri trade! Hall trade! Etc).

 

[Aurinko]

If you look at a classic non-1st Rd stud team, the 2011 Boston Cup team, what Rd did they come from?
Patrice Bergeron (2nd Rd BOS)
Milan Lucic (2nd Rd BOS)
David Krejci (2nd Rd BOS)

I’m not against trading picks, I just never saw us gaining the assets we needed and it was frustrating to see assets get shipped out at the same time.

Fitz trades picks! Sure, but Siegenthaler was a RFA, so no problem there. If we weren’t a playoff team or keeping him we could have flipped Graves at the TDL for quite a bit.

That 2nd was also the NYI 2021 2nd #61, which is a lot less sexy than the ones Shero traded away.

I will add, I believe Shero at first made a point of trading “extra” spare 2nds away, until he didn’t.

I simply stand by my call that if you are a GM of a lottery team that was the 3rd seed in the draft, and you currently have zero extra 1sts or 2nds, you shouldn’t be trading away your own next three 2nds.

I just don’t know why people won’t admit that was weird and bad because it was. You can even like other things he did (excellent hirings! Palmieri trade! Hall trade! Etc).

Losing Siegenthaler and especially Graves is a big hit, but they are not high value player with their current cap hit. Miller and Nosek I see as high value contracts and amazing guys. Fitz has gotten guys some guys that I would put some real money on. There are also some absolute key pieces of extreme value like Toffoli and Mcleod... this is one hell of a team you have for 23-24 season.

 

[OlfactoryHughes]

Losing Siegenthaler and especially Graves is a big hit, but they are not high value player with their current cap hit. Miller and Nosek I see as high value contracts and amazing guys. Fitz has gotten guys some guys that I would put some real money on. There are also some absolute key pieces of extreme value like Toffoli and Mcleod... this is one hell of a team you have for 23-24 season.

Siegenthaler is still a devil…. I, for one, think we can absorb the graves loss pretty easily

 

[forceten]

Ray Shero was the worst General Manager of the New Jersey Devils over the last 36 years.

He's also the worst living GM in franchise history.

 

[NJDevs26]

Ray Shero was the worst General Manager of the New Jersey Devils over the last 36 years.

He's also the worst living GM in franchise history.

I mean that's a pretty high bar though, Lou was an all-time GM for like 25 years before we started chasing our tail at the end and Fitzy's become the best young GM in the league. It's not like we're comparing Shero to the pantheon of Jet or Met GM's here, we're doing pretty well when having a league average GM for five years represents a downgrade.

 

[forceten]

I mean that's a pretty high bar though, Lou was an all-time GM for like 25 years before we started chasing our tail at the end and Fitzy's become the best young GM in the league. It's not like we're comparing Shero to the pantheon of Jet or Met GM's here, we're doing pretty well when having a league average GM for five years represents a downgrade.

I'm being very tongue in cheek. Shero is worse than Lou and Fitz and those are the only three GMs we had in 36 years! And the other GMs we had - MacMillan and McNabb (and Abel and Miron) are all dead, so the second statement is true as well.

 

[Guadana]

I'm not a real devils fan so I don't give a fak if the devils win the cup or not

 

[Guadana]

Early 2nd round picks have a lot more value than the rest.
View attachment 732784

If a different team’s GM pissed away this picks, and I mean really pissed them away, getting absolutely nothing from them after 2022, would people make excuses?

2019 2nd #34
2020 2nd #37
2020 3rd #68
2021 2nd #36

People seemed a lot harder on the lost assets in these in these trades:
To move Gostisbehere
2022 2nd #36
2022 7th #216
For Risto
2021 1st #14
2023 2nd #39
For DeAngelo
2022 4th #101
2023 3rd #71
2024 2nd
And no, it’s not just because of the 1st.

The NHL is made up of mostly 1st Rd players, then it’s 2nd round players and every other round trails that. Look at our team last year
1st (10): Jack, Luke, Nico, Hamilton, Foote, Holtz, Meier, Mercer, Lazar, Smith
2nd (9): Blackwood, Bastian, Bahl, Boqvist, Okhotiuk, Severson, Siegenthaler, Tatar, Vanacek
3 (1):Zetterlund
4 (3): Graves, Thompson, Wood
5 (2): Schmid, Sharongovich
6 (2): Bratt, Marino
7 (3): Haula, Johnsson, Palat

We lacked too much talent to do his bullshit late pick drafts and trades for complimentary pieces with limited team control.

This isn’t hindsight. I was done with Shero after the thin 2018 draft and trading away those 2nds for older guys 2-3 years away from UFA.

We didn’t have enough talent on the team, or in the prospect pool, and after that we didn’t have many high picks either.

You can’t rebuild a team through picks outside of the 2nd round, plus one 1st a year, but that’s what Shero was doing. It wasn’t a feasible approach to team building, we were spinning our wheels and wasting our time.

So we needed the Summer of Shero to implode and then dismantle everything he did. He wasn’t hilariously destructive or terrible like Fletcher but Yzerman is doing a better job in Detroit, he just doesn’t win any lotteries, but people here shit on him.

People get hung up on short term UFA signings, but those are free, you can’t just have prospects play on your team and you can flip them at the TDL. Trading for every vet was an unnecessary asset drain, I would have preferred shitty UFA deals.

Palmieri was a RFA and that was a great trade. The Mueller trade was bad, in the sense he sucked and everyone thought he would probably suck, but trading for a young RFA defenseman is a more defensible move.

It basically worked out in the end but sorry, he had to go. I’m standing by that call. I’m mean that way.

The last 2nds remain bitter because 1) It would have been nice to have had the option to trade up with the late 1sts.
2) While people love Stankoven (2021 #47), I don’t really care about the other years as much as 2020, that 2nd Rd was stacked.

The 2020 2nd Rounders at #37 (our pick) or later on who made Wheeler Top Drafted Prospects Honorable Mentions* list (77 players)
#37 Khusnutdinov C (MIN)
#38 Bordeleau C (SJS)
#42 Evangelista RW (NSH)
#45 Faber RHD (MIN)
#54 Andrae LHD (PHI)
Wheeler’s Top Ten Goalie Prospects
10th: #46 Drew Commesso (CHI)
27 Honorable Mentions
#52 Joel Blomqvist (PIT)

The other 2020 none 1st Rounders HM:
#32 Wallinder LHD (DET)
3rd Rd #68 Cormier LHD (VGK)
4th Rd #124 Farrell LW (MTL)


*Just FYI, The four 2nd Rounders in his top 50 are #21 Stankoven, #27 Hutson (2022 2nd #62), #28 Zellweger (2021 2nd #34) and #37 Christall (2023 2nd #40) in Wheeler’s Top 50. The other non-1st Rounder: #36 Nikishin (2020 3rd #69)

We didn’t have second round pick in 2021(because of one gm)
some second rounders from that draft are
Zellweger, Knies, Raty, Morrow, Stankoven

from 2020
Faber, Peterka, Khusnutdinov(our pick), Wallinder, Evangelista, Ponomaryov

 

[My3Sons]

We didn’t have second round pick in 2021(because of one gm)
some second rounders from that draft are
Zellweger, Knies, Raty, Morrow, Stankoven

from 2020
Faber, Peterka, Khusnutdinov(our pick), Wallinder, Evangelista, Ponomaryov

One more promising winger or center would look really nice for NJ right about now.

 

[Guadana]

One more promising winger or center would look really nice for NJ right about now.

I wanted Peterka and Khusnutdinov as options for our 20 pick. It could be amazing to draft Marat(Peterka wasn’t being available for our pick). Or Faber. Both have a chance to be very impactful players for their roles. Overall I like what our scouting stuff did and I think they could easily found one-two nhlers from 3-4 drafts. For now we have Bardakov only as a center with nhl potential, and no matter how I like him, I admit his limited offensive potential.

Just imagine if we would drafted Knies and Khusnutdinov. I don’t like this way of thinking, but I can’t stop to do it, because I’m very pro draft guy. I’m so pro draft guy, so I’m feeling some empathy for flyers now, because I like Michkov and Gauthier veeeery much. Can’t wait to see them both on the ice together. Detroit and Ottawa are the teams I have sympathy too because I like Edvinsson, Seider, Kasper, Stuzle and… Sanderson a lot. Sanderson was my favorite prospect for now before the draft. I’m not talking about devils prospects, because the feeling is deeper and we are cultivating it from game to game, from video to video, from season to season.

 

[Devs3cups]

 

[Hisch13r]

I find it very funny that Dom had us 4th most improved and JFresh has us 5th worst (he did mention that there's the obvious asterisk because of Luke and Nemec). My thought has been we're not really any better or worse than we were to finish the year

The Most and Least-Improved Teams of the 2023 Offseason

JFresh looks at which teams actually bettered themselves this summer and which ones could be disappointed with the acquisitions.

eprinkside.com