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

[Triumph]

I watched pretty much every game, and I'm looking at a set of stats as well. No clue where Nico is the shooter comes from. No one else seems to have an answer either. But hey this guy makes cool player cards, so Nico must be the shooter.

Would like to see who he thinks the shooter is on Boston. Is it the guy who takes the most shots and scores the most goals(Pasta), or the guy with the most HDCF and higher xGF(Debrusk)?

Again, had you read what I said, or what the tweet says, which you insist on not ever reading, this is not HDCF and it is not xGF. I hope that helps.

I agree that Hischier is not the main shooter in terms of volume. I do think that's a weird wording and that he's trying to emphasize the stat there.

 

[DevilsHughes86]

I have no doubt the PP will be a lot stronger this season with the addition of Toffoli with his 10g and 25pts on the pp with Calgary last season. We should probably expect Luke to play some 2nd waive pp and he will bring much offense. I think we will be just fine

 

[devilsblood]

Again, had you read what I said, or what the tweet says, which you insist on not ever reading, this is not HDCF and it is not xGF. I hope that helps.

I agree that Hischier is not the main shooter in terms of volume. I do think that's a weird wording and that he's trying to emphasize the stat there.

Geez louise. Better late then never I guess.


But let me know when you figure out just what that tweet is saying.

 

[Eggtimer]

For some reason I find it amusing the Islanders are 3rd on that list. Good luck to whoever succeeds Lou. They'll have an aging roster with an elite goalie. Hey...that sounds familiar...

The Islanders will be in almost exactly the same position were . Over the hill , declining veterans on very poor value contracts , capped out , zero prospects in the pipeline as most of the draft picks were used acquiring sub par players , no superstar or really elite players , top end goalie that goes to waste and only gets the team a shittier draft pick than they deserve .
The Islanders are in for a lot of years of being terrible. Only way out is to burn it all down while players like Barzal and and Sorokin have value but that will never happen as long as Lou is GM . He will keep trying to plug holes in a sinking shop with old players that have already started to decline because that’s all he can afford under the cap . He has zero assets to use on squiring anyone hood enough to improve their team . Unless he trades they’d 1st rounders . But that just sets them back even further ….

 

[devilsblood]

So nothing else going on?

When do we start up the #5 pole?

 

[Better Call Sal]

Dougie-Jack-Timo-Nico-Toffoli
Luke-Mercer-Bratt-Haula-Palat

This should be a strong PP group.

 

[Classic Devil]

Dougie-Jack-Timo-Nico-Toffoli
Luke-Mercer-Bratt-Haula-Palat

This should be a strong PP group.

If Holtz is in the lineup I would hope he's on the second unit. Both units could really use that strong RH shot.

 

[Better Call Sal]

If Holtz is in the lineup I would hope he's on the second unit. Both units could really use that strong RH shot.

He was actually in my list there before I realized I was forgetting Mercer.

It's a nice problem to have, no doubt. We have the ability to tinker with it quite a bit if it's not working. I really think that first unit should be able to be consistently productive. I think having Toffoli in the net front area as a right handed shot makes a much bigger difference than people may realize.

 

[Forge]

Dougie-Jack-Timo-Nico-Toffoli
Luke-Mercer-Bratt-Haula-Palat

This should be a strong PP group.

I'm assuming the second unit will have two defensemen, right?

 

[AfroThunder396]

If I'm reading this "shooting score" correctly it seems to mean that when the puck was on Nico's stick on the PP, he shot better than you would expect an average PP shooter to shoot. If that's the case then it seems consistent with what I saw. He wasn't the featured guy, but when he had opportunities he was very good at cashing them in.

Jack's and Timo's numbers make sense here too. They are both volume shooters. Yeah, they both score a lot of goals, but they also both take a lot of shots. If you give a shooter time and space on the PP then eventually the puck will go in. That doesn't mean it was particularly impressive by the shooter. The difference is that Jack is still an elite distributor while Timo doesn't seem to do very well in that area.

Bratt not overperforming the field as a shooter makes sense too. He may have had the highest quality opportunities on the PP given where he say on the far wing. He benefitted from a lot of royal road/pass-off-pad set ups that gave him lots gaping empty nets. So again, he's just feeding off high quality being generated by other players, good goal production but not really special in any way. He's doing what you would expect any PP shooter to do if they consistently had empty nets to shoot at.

Dougie is the one that really confuses me being squarely in the passer category. Obviously he gets a ton of PP assists being the QB that's sitting at the dot. But he was tied with Josi and Ekblad for 1st in the league in PP goals among defensemen and he did it with fewer shots. He also scored more goals on fewer shots than Nico. It looks like he was one of the best blueline shooters in the league last year, yet has a below average shooter score. Maybe that's just a feature of him being a defenseman in a sample that's an aggregate of mostly forwards, so he looks worse by comparison?

But yeah, calling Hischier "the main shooter" is definitely off the mark, but I think the point is that his shooting was the most efficient of anyone on our PP when you factor in quantity, quality, set-up, and finishing.

 

[Brodeur]

I'm assuming the second unit will have two defensemen, right?

Might be a situational thing. I seem to recall the staff tossing Marino+Severson out there if there wasn't much time left for the 2nd unit. But then for this Haula playoff goal, there was only 13 seconds left before the faceoff and Severson was the lone D out there. Colin Miller probably would get some PP time if they used two D on the second unit. Miller saw a decent amount of PP time for Vegas in 2017-18 when current Devils assistant coach Ryan McGill was with Vegas.

 

[devilsblood]

If I'm reading this "shooting score" correctly it seems to mean that when the puck was on Nico's stick on the PP, he shot better than you would expect an average PP shooter to shoot. If that's the case then it seems consistent with what I saw. He wasn't the featured guy, but when he had opportunities he was very good at cashing them in.

Jack's and Timo's numbers make sense here too. They are both volume shooters. Yeah, they both score a lot of goals, but they also both take a lot of shots. If you give a shooter time and space on the PP then eventually the puck will go in. That doesn't mean it was particularly impressive by the shooter. The difference is that Jack is still an elite distributor while Timo doesn't seem to do very well in that area.

Bratt not overperforming the field as a shooter makes sense too. He may have had the highest quality opportunities on the PP given where he say on the far wing. He benefitted from a lot of royal road/pass-off-pad set ups that gave him lots gaping empty nets. So again, he's just feeding off high quality being generated by other players, good goal production but not really special in any way. He's doing what you would expect any PP shooter to do if they consistently had empty nets to shoot at.

Dougie is the one that really confuses me being squarely in the passer category. Obviously he gets a ton of PP assists being the QB that's sitting at the dot. But he was tied with Josi and Ekblad for 1st in the league in PP goals among defensemen and he did it with fewer shots. He also scored more goals on fewer shots than Nico. It looks like he was one of the best blueline shooters in the league last year, yet has a below average shooter score. Maybe that's just a feature of him being a defenseman in a sample that's an aggregate of mostly forwards, so he looks worse by comparison?

But yeah, calling Hischier "the main shooter" is definitely off the mark, but I think the point is that his shooting was the most efficient of anyone on our PP when you factor in quantity, quality, set-up, and finishing.

Except Nico's shooting % was well below Bratt's Timo's Dougies and Hughes.

Only 2 guys had a lower %.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Except Nico's shooting % was well below Bratt's Timo's and Hughes.

It's not measuring shooting percent. It's measuring positive or negative outcomes based on situation and quality.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Might be a situational thing. I seem to recall the staff tossing Marino+Severson out there if there wasn't much time left for the 2nd unit. But then for this Haula playoff goal, there was only 13 seconds left before the faceoff and Severson was the lone D out there. Colin Miller probably would get some PP time if they used two D on the second unit. Miller saw a decent amount of PP time for Vegas in 2017-18 when current Devils assistant coach Ryan McGill was with Vegas.

It was definitely done situationally at times. The most infamous one I remember is our late PP against Nashville when we were up a goal and they didn't want to give up a chance the other way so Marino was put out there. People were furious that we didn't really go for the dagger goal there, and it came back to bite us in giving up the late tying goal against.

Primarily, Severson would be the only defender out on the second unit with some combination of Mercer, Haula, Palat, Tatar, Zetterlund, etc. That second unit never got much time to gel given how much firepower was on the first unit. I think with Toffoli's inclusion this year and a full year of Timo allows us to deploy two strong units and have Bratt be the guy for PP2.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

You say it yourself, if Meier is on the halfwall, then Bratt is not. The decision between Toffoli or Bratt down low is a pretty easy one.

PP1:

Nico: net front
Mercer: bumper
Meier: right half board
Jack: left half board
Dougie: up top

PP2:

Haula: net front/faceoff
Bratt: half board
Toffoli: half board
Palat: bumper
Luke: up top

Could even flip Bratt and Mercer and have Bratt/Meier flip roles on the fly PP1 if things aren't working out. Just spit balling out here.

 

[Classic Devil]

PP1:

Nico: net front
Mercer: bumper
Meier: right half board
Jack: left half board
Dougie: up top

PP2:

Haula: net front/faceoff
Bratt: half board
Toffoli: half board
Palat: bumper
Luke: up top

Could even flip Bratt and Mercer and have Bratt/Meier flip roles on the fly PP1 if things aren't working out. Just spit balling out here.

I'm pretty sure Toffoli will be on PP 1. You want the lethal RH shot at the dot.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

I'm pretty sure Toffoli will be on PP 1. You want the lethal RH shot at the dot.

Definitely a possibility, the Toffoli add helps PP2 indirectly too because someone good will be kicked down there to carry along with Luke.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

My biggest concern for regression this year was that we had 39 regulation wins. That's still tied for 4th in the NHL (with Carolina and Dallas), so very good, but it's a closer to 9th (37 wins) than it is to 3rd (42 wins).

Personally, I think the Devils had a lot of luck on their side last year and their results ended up a bit ahead of where I think the team is.

If you drop just a couple of regulations wins to 37, it's tied with the Rangers and Seattle. Still solid playoff teams, but more middle of the pack. That's really just one or two injuries and maybe a slightly down year from a player or two, and my sense for where the team ends up next year.

IMO, the big wildcard is Jack. I think this team rises and falls based on his play (assuming baseline competency in goal, and talking regular season only). If Jack is just puts up 120 points this year, the team fights for the division lead / conference title. If Jack drops to 80, the team is a playoff team, but doesn't have a lot of buzz.

Our luck came mainly in the form of injury luck (though that ran out in the playoffs with Hamilton and Jack fairly hobbled). In terms of what happened on the ice, we had elite underlying numbers most of the year and didn’t really ride great shooting or goaltending.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Our luck came mainly in the form of injury luck (though that ran out in the playoffs with Hamilton and Jack fairly hobbled). In terms of what happened on the ice, we had elite underlying numbers most of the year and didn’t really ride great shooting or goaltending.

Hell, our worst stretch of hockey result wise in December, we were still largely dominating the underlying numbers if I'm not mistaken.

Things kind of corrected themselves in January-February where we weren't dictating the play as strongly as we had but were finally getting the pucks to go in on the quality chances we had.

 

[Aurinko]

PP1:

Nico: net front
Mercer: bumper
Meier: right half board
Jack: left half board
Dougie: up top

PP2:

Haula: net front/faceoff
Bratt: half board
Toffoli: half board
Palat: bumper
Luke: up top

Could even flip Bratt and Mercer and have Bratt/Meier flip roles on the fly PP1 if things aren't working out. Just spit balling out here.

Ryan McGill on paper is a strict downgrade compared to last season imo, but these PP units look so good they should sort themselves out even before the season starts. Miller really is a strong option as well.

I would be surprised if PP with these lines would be below NHL average. Last year it was 13th during the season, which is a good start, but looks like it freezed in the playoffs.

 

[glenwo2]

I'm being pedantic, but that's a dumb graphic. The Devils didn't "spend" $154 million this offseason. They committed to that amount.

And no kidding it's that high - Bratt and Timo as two high-end RFAs getting eight year contracts accounts for like $125M of that, other RFAs and Haula round it out. Next offseason, some other team with some high end RFAs due for raises (I think Buffalo has Power and Dahlin up next offseason) will get close as well, if not beat it.

I do like that our current ownership isn't stingy, though.

 

[theoptimist]

The "money spent" graphic is misleading

 

[Hisch13r]

If Holtz is in the lineup I would hope he's on the second unit. Both units could really use that strong RH shot.

Yeah to me the units look like this (with Dougie and Luke pretty interchangeable)

Nico
Jack-Toffoli-Meier
Dougie

Haula
Holtz-Mercer-Bratt
Luke

 

[devilsfan950003]

Dougie-Jack-Timo-Nico-Toffoli
Luke-Mercer-Bratt-Haula-Palat

This should be a strong PP group.

I'd like to see Holtz get time on that second powerplay unit.

 

[bossram]

I have no doubt the PP will be a lot stronger this season with the addition of Toffoli with his 10g and 25pts on the pp with Calgary last season. We should probably expect Luke to play some 2nd waive pp and he will bring much offense. I think we will be just fine

I think Toffoli might be there to juice PP2. He primarily played either Left Flank or Netfront on CGY's PP. Obviously he's not displacing Jack on the left, and there is a lot of competition for the netfront spot.