The defense could certainly have issues. That's essentially the only aspect of this team where I can see a pretty significant issue if there were to be one. I also think bringing in Miller helps alleviate that and I think Nemec gets another year in the A.
Definitely can be a solid group...
That was the reason given for the conversation being shutdown....still make little sense on a hockey message board to shut down a conversation on the top two prospects when we have the #1 pick.
I’m way more concerned about our goaltending than defense, and I’m not that concerned about goaltending.
No there just wasn’t a Kakko thread, there were plenty of draft specific threads where people were complaining but the ‘discussion’ was had there and in the Hughes thread anyway. Like 731 said, people complained they couldn’t say x then said it anyway. They wouldn’t be allowed to say x in any other thread if all discussion was shut down. People just equated not having a Kakko thread to not being allowed to debate it…you could debate it just like you could debate other untrue opinions like Nico being a ‘cancer’ last year, but how many different threads do we need for it when there was no indication at all we were drafting this player?
This. This resonates with me too because in my business I see this all the time. Point solutions seem fine in isolation but nobody's looking at the big picture and how decisions and actions impact it or align to a vision. It was dart board and opportunistic in my view, grab a sexy name or potential NHL top liner... he took what he could get.
I’m with ya man . I really like his game . I know he is a bottom 6 player but he is a dakn good one and I think having a good bottom 6 will be key when facing the other top teams in the playoffs .
No, as much as it pains me to say, I'm with Jim on this one. There was a Hughes thread well before draft day and that's all that was allowed to be talked about, pretty sure I got slapped for making the same points he is.
The Devils were 4th in Goals For...take Jack's 43 goals away and the Devil are right back at the bottom of the league at 21st... basically where they have been the last 4 or 5 years.
The kid is a star. What a trajectory from disgrace to one of the top players in the league.
Well, you can't really take away his 43 goals and replace them with nothing. I'd say you'd probably replace him with a 20 goal scorer? Something in that range?
It was a flat earth theory basically. One poll of anonymous scouts that was cited as proof of how ‘close’ it was based on a few comments still had all ten scouts picking Hughes in the end. The media and the team both had a vested interest in trying to gin up drama but when you looked beyond that there was zero indication anyone’s ranking ever changed. Nico and Patrick was cited as closer than expected by many sources around the league from almost the minute we won the lottery and a lot of those straw polls were dead even.
That's all fine, but when you treat talking about hockey prospects on a hockey prospect board that same as you would politics, it's a bit much.
While I understand the Gusev move, I think it was done for the wrong reason. The team was either fooled into thinking they could build around Taylor Hall and Hischier without much else (Bratt was promising but I doubt the team saw him becoming this good) or they just wanted to appease Hall with a new contract needed. I have a suspicion that the Subban and Gusev trades were done to have short term improvement to convince Hall to stay in NJ. Ultimately, they were futile and while not catastrophic they just screamed short term moves at the time on what was still a developing team. That's just my opinion and others can certainly see it differently. Hindsight is always 20/20 and likely the second and third round picks don't hit but from a team building standpoint I would have preferred the picks.
Hughes will have growing pains and Bahl as well. Bahl atleast has a good chunk of games under his belt and has looked like a top 4 dman at times. We also have Smith as our #7 incase of inquires or someone needing to sit. Really if you look at our AHL pipeline it is really young on the backend as well. Nemec , Vilen , Misyul , Vukojevic etc. Vilen and Misyul need time to learn the NA game. Kind of wish Okhotiuk wasn't a piece in the Meier deal.
That debate was had plenty, you and others just equated having no Kakko thread to it not being discussed at all. It’s kind of nuts we’re still debating ‘having the discussion’ four years later when Hughes was the right pick then and has proven to be ten times more so now. So we’re debating what exactly, not having an alternate universe where we go nuts, make the pick no expert seriously advocated for and Fitz is still rebuilding?
Santini looked very promising to me as a potential middle pairing defensive guy, almost like a Siegenthaler, but he just never panned out. He seemed to have enough mobility and he certainly was willing to hit guys so he must have really struggled to process the game.
I’m not sure even Bleed can remember #2 and the dude is hockey’s rain man lol
