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

[Guadana]

I don't really care what Jack does off the ice as long as it's not [seriously] illegal

At least in the state where he is doing it.

 

[NJDevs26]

I'm not normally a "kids these days don't understand" kind of poster, despite the fact that I'm withering away to dust now that I'm in my 30's. But as we get further and further away from his playing days, Marty's reputation is going to continue to decline. He's one of those players that stats can't adequately capture, you just simply had to watch him play to understand it.

The funny thing is stats should be his biggest argument but ‘winning games’ doesn’t have the value it sometimes should with advanced stats and Marty’s GAA is right in the ballpark of Hasek and Dryden

 

[Ripshot 43]

Meh, you guys and girls care too much about what other fans think. Marty is #1 in my book because he brought us 3 Cups during his career.

 

[devilsblood]

Meh, you guys and girls care too much about what other fans think. Marty is #1 in my book because he brought us 3 Cups during his career.

He doesn’t need to be the greatest imo. Just great, with all the records, and the 3 cups is enough.

But he’s def in the discussion for GOAT.

 

[Goptor]

I actually think the biggest problem with Brodeur is that Roy got all the media attention when he was chasing all-time records and then by the time Brodeur passed Roy, it wasn't seen as big of a deal since the records were so recently broken.

 

[Triumph]

This is all correct of course, but I guess my point is that things like games played, wins, and GAA have far less weight to them than they did just 10 years ago. People only care about shooting data these days.

Shot quantity data does not flatter Brodeur for a variety of reasons, and shot quality data simply doesn't exist for most of his career. So people are left to speculate and fill in the gaps. Typically they fill in those gaps with "trap" and "Stevens/Niedermayer" and whatnot.

I think history will remember Brodeur more as a novelty than as one of the best to ever play. Any reasonable person should acknowledge that Hasek and many other were better at stopping pucks. But Marty was so much more than a puck stopper. People will continue to admire his durability and puck handling, but I think he'll largely be excluded from top-5/GOAT conversations going forward in favor of more "pure" goalies. I think his reputation will begin to sink in favor of goalies with prettier shot/save numbers, at least as long as the stats community stays in their current meta.

I think there's just no way this happens because goalie careers are so short now, and save percentages are down too. Take Jonathan Quick, he won 2 Stanley Cups - he's probably playing out his last season with the Rangers. He's played 753 games, let's say he gets 20 more. That's still 773 games - Brodeur has 691 wins.

Shesterkin is 27 and has played 158 games in the NHL. There's a good chance he never even plays 691 games.

 

[JrFischer54]

On the ice, sure. My question is how much DJing, F1 watching, and beach lecturing is supposed to be included in the offseason program. Jack is a kid and should blow off steam. I'm just curious how often he's blowing off steam. Once or twice a week or five days a week?

I’m majority of all pros in their early years partied and had fun. We just never were able to see it

 

[Bleedred]

Since Marty has retired, there really haven't been any goalies that have come on strong enough to really put their own mark and write their own legacy as an all-time great, aside from Vasilevskiy.

There's a few other guys that were already around and well established before Marty even retired, like Lundqvist, Luongo and maybe Fleury, Quick and Price, but Vasilevskiy is really the only one to really have written his own legacy as a new legend in the post-Brodeur years.

There's a chance someone like Shesterkin or Sorokin can also be there before their careers are over, but Sorokin has the misfortune of being under contract for 9 more years by a team that doesn't really look like it has much chance to make serious noise in his prime. Same thing could be said about a guy like Saros behind Nashville.

Vasilevskiy played his first NHL game about 2 weeks before Brodeur played his last. It would have been really cool for sentimental reasons if they were somehow able to faceoff against each in the closing weeks of Marty's career/opening weeks of Vasilevskiy's.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Assuming this convo is about the goalie question that came on Twitter a couple of days ago, Hasek is #1 imo but anyone who doesn't have Marty at least in their top 3 is f***ing deluded. Our system in the 90's and 2000's was helped because of his puck handling ability. Guy almost won another Cup when he was 40 with Mark Fayne on the top pair because teams still didn't know how to break his puck handling ability in 2012. We smoked the Flyers that year because of it.

Meh, you guys and girls care too much about what other fans think. Marty is #1 in my book because he brought us 3 Cups during his career.

Would put Hasek at 1 but Marty is #3 at the worst.

 

[Bleedred]

I actually think the biggest problem with Brodeur is that Roy got all the media attention when he was chasing all-time records and then by the time Brodeur passed Roy, it wasn't seen as big of a deal since the records were so recently broken.

At the same time though, Roy's original record breaking win, which I think was 447 or 448 when he passed Sawchuk after 30 years, has now also been passed by about a handful of other goalies.

Brodeur, Fleury, Luongo, Belfour, I think even Curtis Joseph passed it by just a few wins. That's just off the top of my head. I even think Lundqvist passed that, which he did, upon confirmation. It took 30 years for someone to pass Sawchuk and then over the next 20 years at least 7 more guys have passed Sawchuk's win total, which stood as the record for 30 years. Shootouts helped a few of those guys, but Belfour and Joseph barely played at all in the shootout era and Marty played more years in the pre-shootout era than not.

And this coming year Fleury is now about to pass Roy in wins only 15 years after Marty did it, which really only took not even 5 more seasons after Roy last played. I think every somewhat sane fan can agree that Fleury is nowhere near Roy and him passing Roy will really do nothing to bolster his legacy and reputation anywhere near Roy's.

I think we all knew from the moment that Roy retired in 2003 that Marty would eventually break the wins record and probably set a new record by a whole lot. Marty actually passed Roy in regular season shutouts the very next year after Roy retired, as Roy had 66 in his career and Marty was sitting on 64 as of the end of the last season Roy played. Roy was never the shutouts leader, that was also Sawchuk. I actually don't even think Roy was ever even top-10 in regular season shutouts all time at any point, but he was definitely the leader in playoff shutouts, until Marty just passed him by one in his last ever playoffs.

 

[PettersonHughes]

On the note of Brodeur and his era (won 3 Cups and I was a big fan of his growing up) and your team's success this past year, if his team and last season's team (which set the team record for wins and points) were to play a 7 game series, which team would you guys take?

[Let's say it's the current playoff standards for physicality, where over-the-top headshots or excessive roughness/ pulling on opponents wouldn't fly, because I know that in the earlier era it was pretty laissez-faire]. Curious to hear your thoughts!

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

On the note of Brodeur and his era (won 3 Cups and I was a big fan of his growing up) and your team's success this past year, if his team and last season's team (which set the team record for wins and points) were to play a 7 game series, which team would you guys take?

[Let's say it's the current playoff standards for physicality, where over-the-top headshots or excessive roughness/ pulling on opponents wouldn't fly, because I know that in the earlier era it was pretty laissez-faire]. Curious to hear your thoughts!

2000-2001 team is probably our best team in history and arguably more deserving of a Cup than the 95' and 2003' teams funny enough but it's just sometimes how the league works with elite teams not winning and then the teams you don't expect to win them wind up winning the Cup. As for your question, it honestly depends what era you play in. The 2000-2001 team wouldn't be able to handle the team speed of last year's team. If the refs are from this era, the 2000-2001 won't play as physical and the 22-23 would run them over in 5. But if it's played at the old school pace then I think the 2000-2001 team would have their way, that team also massive advantage in goalie with Marty v Vanecek.

 

[Xirik]

Assuming this convo is about the goalie question that came on Twitter a couple of days ago, Hasek is #1 imo but anyone who doesn't have Marty at least in their top 3 is f***ing deluded. Our system in the 90's and 2000's was helped because of his puck handling ability. Guy almost won another Cup when he was 40 with Mark Fayne on the top pair because teams still didn't know how to break his puck handling ability in 2012. We smoked the Flyers that year because of it.



Would put Hasek at 1 but Marty is #3 at the worst.

By the time the Devils got to the Finals both Kovalchuk and Parise were on their last gasps because of injuries. Brodeur is 95% of the reason we won those three games.

 

[TBF1972]

I was thinking the opposite, in like 20-50 years people are gonna look at his career win totals and games played every year and be baffled. Like those pitchers from 120 years ago that have 30 wins and 400 innings pitched in a season. The strain of modern goaltending / elite athletics is just going to get more and more intense and the numbers will more and more eyepopping and always keep him in best of all time discussions.

once hischier is full bionic he will be able to play 60min every game - as a sixth skater with goaltender duties.

 

[Blackjack]

Devils are ranked 4th in U23 by Pronman. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but he’s pretty down on a bunch of guys we believe in like Casey, Vilen, and Gritsyuk. He has Josh Filmon ranked above all those guys at #6.

Pronman also really does not like Hameenaho and ranked him 10th.

We’ll see.

 

[Devs3cups]

Devils are ranked 4th in U23 by Pronman. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but he’s pretty down on a bunch of guys we believe in like Casey, Vilen, and Gritsyuk. He has Josh Filmon ranked above all those guys at #6.

Pronman also really does not like Hameenaho and ranked him 10th.

We’ll see.

I thought’d we’d be lower tbh, I’ll take 4 considering that we’re already in our window. Such an abundance of riches.

I’ll say that I don’t agree with the Blackhawks at #2. Other than Bedard, I don’t see that much high-end talent. Some very good players, don’t get me wrong, but none that touch Jack, Luke and Simon (in terms of prospect rankings) and Mercer except for Bedard, whose gonna be a stud of course. I just don’t think he balances out our guys at the top when you put them together.

 

[Devils731]

Devils are ranked 4th in U23 by Pronman. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but he’s pretty down on a bunch of guys we believe in like Casey, Vilen, and Gritsyuk. He has Josh Filmon ranked above all those guys at #6.

Pronman also really does not like Hameenaho and ranked him 10th.

We’ll see.

Pronman likes flash, so he wants to see great skaters and guys that stickhandle in a phone booth.

Hameenaho may be a bad prospect but I also think, for the above reasons, he’s just inherently a prospect Pronman would likely not be into because he’s more of a cerebral player rather than exciting.

 

[devilsblood]

Pronman likes flash, so he wants to see great skaters and guys that stickhandle in a phone booth.

Hameenaho may be a bad prospect but I also think, for the above reasons, he’s just inherently a prospect Pronman would likely not be into because he’s more of a cerebral player rather than exciting.

You may be right in general but Fillmon does not fit that criteria.

I'd also think such a criteria would help Casey. Some very flashy highlights.

 

[Omar Little]

Devils are ranked 4th in U23 by Pronman. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but he’s pretty down on a bunch of guys we believe in like Casey, Vilen, and Gritsyuk. He has Josh Filmon ranked above all those guys at #6.

Pronman also really does not like Hameenaho and ranked him 10th.

We’ll see.

Pronman loves midgets who can skate pretty

 

[Devils731]

You may be right in general but Fillmon does not fit that criteria.

I'd also think such a criteria would help Casey. Some very flashy highlights.

There are exceptions to anyone’s general preferences.

Filmon scores 47 goals and his play was pretty flashy at times. Pronman even says he was interesting because of his athleticism.

He doesn’t believe Casey has the size to be an impactful NHL player; despite the skill. That’s not a crazy thought, it’s a real question until he gets a chance to prove it against NHL guys. If he doesn’t have that question then the Devils don’t get him in the second round.

————————

Having read Pronman for years, it doesn’t surprise me the quietly productive guy in Ham isn’t a guy that he gets excited for.

 

[devilsblood]

Devils are ranked 4th in U23 by Pronman. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but he’s pretty down on a bunch of guys we believe in like Casey, Vilen, and Gritsyuk. He has Josh Filmon ranked above all those guys at #6.

Pronman also really does not like Hameenaho and ranked him 10th.

We’ll see.

Going back and looking at it, he is not down on Grits. Very positive in his description. He has Foote above him, and he does seem pretty positive on him, but I think Foote being in the NHL mix this upcoming season while Grits in in the KHL for a couple more years, probably played into it.

I think his take on Lenni Hams was pretty positive as well. 10th in the U23 poll, but 8th if you take out Jack and Mercer, which is about where we as a board had him in the prospect poll.

He does have Filmon and Foote higher then we did, but I think the lower rankings of guys like Hams and Casey speaks once again to how stacked we are in terms of young talent, and should not be seen as Pronman being down on those guys.

There are exceptions to anyone’s general preferences.

Filmon scores 47 goals and his play was pretty flashy at times. Pronman even says he was interesting because of his athleticism.

He doesn’t believe Casey has the size to be an impactful NHL player; despite the skill. That’s not a crazy thought, it’s a real question until he gets a chance to prove it against NHL guys. If he doesn’t have that question then the Devils don’t get him in the second round.

————————

Having read Pronman for years, it doesn’t surprise me the quietly productive guy in Ham isn’t a guy that he gets excited for.

I say it above but his take on Hams was pretty positive.

And Foote is another guy who doesn't fit the "flash" criteria. Though Pronman does like his skills.

 

[devilsblood]

The guys Pronman doesn't seem to like, or at least liked less then, that we did, were Clarke, and as noted above, Vilen.

He noted questionable skating on each, but oddly he liked Foote? Now Foote has the size edge on Clarke, but Vilen has good size, though granted different positions.

Wouldn't be shocked if Vilen's skating is better then Pronman gives him credit for.

 

[tailfins]

Pronman likes flash, so he wants to see great skaters and guys that stickhandle in a phone booth.

Hameenaho may be a bad prospect but I also think, for the above reasons, he’s just inherently a prospect Pronman would likely not be into because he’s more of a cerebral player rather than exciting.

From what I can tell, there's a baseline of size that he requires of defenseman in particular. He's got Hutson as a middle of the line-up player (I'm sure MTL fans are thrilled with that evaluation). @Guadana has had similar reactions on this board.

Agree on Hameenaho - though, I'll say it slightly differently: Pronman favors projectable elite skills. It's harder to see elite hockey IQ than it is an elite shot, speed, or even compete. How do you tell if Hameenaho has elite IQ, or just NHL average IQ? Much easier with tangible skills.

Size (height) plus above average tangible skill feels to me like why he has Filmon, Foote, and Karpovich above where the board consensus is.

 

[Blackjack]

There are exceptions to anyone’s general preferences.

Filmon scores 47 goals and his play was pretty flashy at times. Pronman even says he was interesting because of his athleticism.

He doesn’t believe Casey has the size to be an impactful NHL player; despite the skill. That’s not a crazy thought, it’s a real question until he gets a chance to prove it against NHL guys. If he doesn’t have that question then the Devils don’t get him in the second round.

————————

Having read Pronman for years, it doesn’t surprise me the quietly productive guy in Ham isn’t a guy that he gets excited for.

I think Casey is still early in his curve and I don’t hold it against him that Pronman isn’t going all in yet. That said, it’s hard to dispute that he had an extremely successful D+1, and I’m not aware of many, if any smaller defensemen that were able to defend effectively in the NCAA and then could not translate that to the NHL.

11th on the list and projected as a marginal NHLer seems a little low to me.

 

[Blackjack]

Going back and looking at it, he is not down on Grits. Very positive in his description. He has Foote above him, and he does seem pretty positive on him, but I think Foote being in the NHL mix this upcoming season while Grits in in the KHL for a couple more years, probably played into it.

I think his take on Lenni Hams was pretty positive as well. 10th in the U23 poll, but 8th if you take out Jack and Mercer, which is about where we as a board had him in the prospect poll.

He does have Filmon and Foote higher then we did, but I think the lower rankings of guys like Hams and Casey speaks once again to how stacked we are in terms of young talent, and should not be seen as Pronman being down on those guys.


I say it above but his take on Hams was pretty positive.

And Foote is another guy who doesn't fit the "flash" criteria. Though Pronman does like his skills.

He said some nice things about Grits but bottom line is he’s #8 behind guys like Filmon and Foote, and he’s only projected as a “middle of the lineup player” not even bubble top of the lineup.

He has Hameenaho has a possibility to be bottom six. We ranked Hameenaho seventh I think, but we also had guys like Casey and Grits way higher, and we ranked Schmid as well, those differences more than offset his inclusion of Hughes and Mercer. I don’t mind that one so much because Pronman was not high on him at the draft and I don’t think he needs to do a 180 based on a tournament.

I’m more disappointed that existing prospects that had really good seasons didn’t seem to get much of a boost