Maybe there's a chance we get Bob Wischusen for at least some of the home games, as he's presumably a local guy since he does NFL Jets radio. He really should be the lead PBP guy for ESPN, but he's not.
Yeah Bob is great, I really hope he ends up doing most of the ESPN games eventually. These are days where I wish Dave Strader was still around, he was fantastic as well. Dave and Bob doing most of the games on ESPN while skeletor is out on the street.....ahh....would of been fantastic.
Gord Miller and Chris Cuthbert are great on the Canadian broadcasts as well. I think they would fill in for the NBC broadcasts from time to time no? Those would be good hires for ESPN too.
Maybe there's a chance we get Bob Wischusen for at least some of the home games, as he's presumably a local guy since he does NFL Jets radio. He really should be the lead PBP guy for ESPN, but he's not.
The football commitments are probably why, they probably want their lead guy to always available so it doesn't cause issues. Plus the Jets have a ton of primetime games this year so they really can't afford to have a #1 PBP not having Sundays/Mondays/Thursday. They also have that Black Friday game this year v Miami in NY so that really doesn't help Wischusen's case. Also pretty sure Bob does college football too.
For fun (it is!), I listed the teams that don’t have matching grades. I listed any specific categories (the six on the cards above) where the grade disparity really stood out. (I was more thorough until I got tired lol).
31/ Calgary Public D Fanbase D-
Fanbase gives “Draft & Develop” a higher grade (C- vs D+) and a lower grade to everything else.
28/Winnipeg Public C Fanbase D+
“Roster building” C- vs D
“Vision” is C vs D+ (32nd, lowest fan voted score too)
A lot of Jets fans are sick of Chevy and whatever he’s doing.
27/ Toronto Public C+ Fanbase D+
“Vision” C vs D+
“Roster Building” C+ vs D+.
Treliving hasn’t won the fans over yet.
25/ NY Rangers Public C+ Fanbase D
Hot Take: The fanbase borderline hates this team for no good reason.
“Roster Building” B- vs D-
Free Agency B vs C+
“Vision” C+ vs D+. Bunch of crybabies.
22/ Columbus Public C+ Fanbase C
Columbus fans know their team.
19/ Boston Public B- Fanbase C-
Well, the fanbase clearly took the playoff disappointment well.
“Roster Building” B vs C+
“Free Agency” B vs C+
“Vision” B- vs C
17/ Ottawa Public B Fanbase C-
Sens fans know their team better, Dorian sucks. They were brutal though.
“Draft and Develop” A vs C+ (ouch)
13/ Los Angeles Public B+ Fanbase B-
Playoffs and big trades have not won this fanbase over.
“Cap Management” B vs C
“Draft and Development” B vs C+ (I can see that.)
8/ Buffalo Public A- Fanbase B+
The public went gaga over them but the fanbase has been hurt before.
6/ Vegas Public A- Fanbase B+
See Card
5/ Colorado Public A Fanbase B+
The cap crunch hasn’t been kind to their depth but fans are most testy about non-top picks failing to develop
“Draft and Develop” B vs C-
4/ Dallas Public A- Fanbase B+
2/ Carolina Public A+ Fanbase A
“Trading” A vs B+
1/ New Jersey Public A+ Fanbase A
See Card
30/ Vancouver Public D Fanbase D+
“Roster Building” D vs C-
“Free Agency” D+ vs B-
29/ San Jose Public D Fanbase C
Vision is C+ vs D+ as fans like that the team is at least self-aware enough to know that they’re in a rebuild.
26/ Washington Public D+ Fanbase C-
It’s the Caps, it’s always this.
“Draft and Develop” D+ vs C
“Vision” D+ vs C
24/ Philadelphia Public D+ Fanbase C
Fanbase is comparatively over the move to have new management.
“Vision” C vs B-
21/ St Louis Public C- Fanbase C+
Blues fans love Armstrong as a trader and have been happy with the drafting.
“Draft and Develop” C+ vs B
“Trading” C+ vs B+
20/ Edmonton Public C Fanbase C+
Some success has caused the fanbase to warm up to Holland.
“Roster Building” C+ vs B-
“Free Agency” C+ vs B
Well except this part, the fanbase doesn’t like this so much:
“Cap Management” C- vs D+
16/ Arizona Public C Fanbase B
Fans happy with the rebuild.
“Roster Building” D+ vs B-
“Vision” D+ vs B
15/ Chicago Public C+ Fanbase B
Fans happy with Bedard.
“Free Agency” C vs B- (kind of generous lol)
14/ Montreal Public C+ Fanbase B+
You knew this was coming, like sun rising in the morning.
“Roster Building” C vs B
“Trading” B- vs A-
“Free Agency” C vs B-
“Vision” C+ vs B+
12/ Detroit Public C+ Fanbase B+
“Roster Building” C+ vs B
“Draft and Develop” B vs A-
“Trading” B- vs A-
“Free Agency” C vs B-
“Vision” C+ vs B
11/ Minnesota Public B- Fanbase B+
“Cap Management” C vs B+
10/ Pittsburgh Public B- Fanbase B+
It’s ding dong the witch is dead all over Pennsylvania, and fans were buying what Dubas was selling.
“Roster Building” B vs A-
“Draft and Develop” D vs C
“Vision” B vs A-
7/ Florida Public B+ Fanbase A-
They had a fun run.
“Roster Building” B+ vs A
3/ Tampa Public A- Fanbase A+
Well, this a fanbase still in love lol.
“Cap Management” B+ vs A
“Draft and Develop” B vs A
“Trading” B- vs A-
Yeah Bob is great, I really hope he ends up doing most of the ESPN games eventually. These are days where I wish Dave Strader was still around, he was fantastic as well. Dave and Bob doing most of the games on ESPN while skeletor is out on the street.....ahh....would of been fantastic.
Gord Miller and Chris Cuthbert are great on the Canadian broadcasts as well. I think they would fill in for the NBC broadcasts from time to time no? Those would be good hires for ESPN too.
As old as I am and you think I even understand that acronym and would have any hope of making all that work? I barely got a free iptv app running on my Apple TV. My streaming service got into a fight with our local abc affiliate and I had to download and install an iptv playlist just to get an ABC feed. What a pain.
It’s obviously stupid to compare Hughes’ effect on the Devils offense and winning for games he doesn’t even participate in.
Afro hockey broke down the Devils record and offense with Hughes playing. That was 50 games. It’s over half a season. If you wanted to add some with and without Hughes into that then that’s a different question and analysis.
I’ll just assume you’re wanting to disingenuously argue rather than concede such an obvious point.
As old as I am and you think I even understand that acronym and would have any hope of making all that work? I barely got a free iptv app running on my Apple TV. My streaming service got into a fight with our local abc affiliate and I had to download and install an iptv playlist just to get an ABC feed. What a pain.
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. At least the conversation I was having with @guitarguyvic where this began.
The percentage of total goals/offense was a direct comparison to 2018 Taylor Hall from a previous discussion.
I was basically saying Hughes contribution to the 2023 team was similar to Hall's 2018 contributions.
Contributions to the totals for two specific players in two specific seasons as a comparison. Nothing more
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. At least the conversation I was having with @guitarguyvic where this began.
The percentage of total goals/offense was a direct comparison to 2018 Taylor Hall from a previous discussion.
I was basically saying Hughes contribution to the 2023 team was similar to Hall's 2018 contributions.
Contributions to the totals for two specific players in two specific seasons as a comparison. Nothing more
I really didn't understand what Afro was saying at first and I said as much in my response to him...it looked like he was jumping through hoops to blame goaltending again. So I admittedly didn't read too closely.
Never the less you certainly are conflating two different concepts stated by two separate people.
Yeah Bob is great, I really hope he ends up doing most of the ESPN games eventually. These are days where I wish Dave Strader was still around, he was fantastic as well. Dave and Bob doing most of the games on ESPN while skeletor is out on the street.....ahh....would of been fantastic.
Gord Miller and Chris Cuthbert are great on the Canadian broadcasts as well. I think they would fill in for the NBC broadcasts from time to time no? Those would be good hires for ESPN too.
Honestly, isn' it easier at this point to draw attention to the situations where you couldn't apply a Dano meme? Like the Frank's Hot Sauce commercial says "I put that sh*t on everything" I think the same applies to Genucel.
I really didn't understand what Afro was saying at first and I said as much in my response to him...it looked like he was jumping through hoops to blame goaltending again. So I admittedly didn't read too closely.
Never the less you certainly are conflating two different concepts stated by two separate people.
How this all began. Pretty bare bones here, it was just a plain list. No grades, no categories, no nothing.
2017 #22 LINK
#1 Nashville #2 Pittsburgh #3 Tampa
#29 Detroit #30 Vancouver #31 Colorado
Everyone loves charts
The Devils have been making some really good trades lately, but there’s more to team management than robbing some GMs blind. The team is still extremely far away from being competitive and it’s going to take a lot more talent from within to get there. The few Devils fans who voted are much more optimistic though and think they have a top 10 front office. Maybe they do, but the rest of us want to see them actually build something first.
Moves to The Athletic
2018 #9 LINK
#1 Tampa #2 Toronto #3 Nashville
(and Winnipeg was #4, Canada is on the rise!)
#29 Edmonton #30 Montreal #31 Ottawa
(or maybe not. Vancouver was #28 too.)
“Upset with free agency, but I expect a lot of the kids will mature and be ready for 82 games this year. No reason to doubt Shero yet”
“Headed in the right direction. Slightly over aggressive sometimes in the late season trade market. Slightly conservative in the free agent market.”
The Devils make a surprise appearance in the top 10 after an equally surprising playoff berth on the backs of fervent fan response. New Jersey’s fans are big believers in what Ray Shero has done so far and for good reason: he did trade a second pairing defender for a future Hart Trophy winner. One for one. But even the public sees that the Devils are making big strides under Shero and the team looks to be trending in the right direction off the ice. The Devils did lose marks after skipping out free agency entirely and while that’s understandable given their 2017-18 success, it was a prudent non-decision considering the team’s current timeline. This team still has work to do and understanding that while sticking to a long-term plan is what separates Shero and co. from other teams that doubled down on surprising success only to see it blow up in their face. The Devils deserve the benefit of the doubt there given confidence in other categories.
2019 #2 LINK
#1 Tampa #2 New Jersey #3 Colorado
#29 Vancouver #30 Ottawa #31 Minnesota
“Honestly could not be more confident in the vision of this FO.”
“There goes my sHero, watch him as he trades.” (Ed. note: there were a lot of these…)
“Shero deserves high marks in leveraging cap space to take advantage of the trade market.”
“Shero continues to find both excellent value in players as well as weaponizing cap space effectively to get the pieces this team needs.”
No fanbase is more excited about the state of their franchise than Devils fans after another wildly successful offseason. Devils fans came out in droves for this survey with one of the largest turnouts, with nearly all of them buzzing from the work done by Ray Shero and Co. this summer. Nearly 95 percent of Devils fans were more confident in the Devils than they were last season – a summer after a season where the team actually made the playoffs.
The team’s roster is coming into shape, the cap picture looks excellent and the vision is clear. That the team is routinely on the right side of trades for big-time players is the cherry on top. Taylor Hall, P.K. Subban and Nikita Gusev – all for a pittance. Off the ice, they gained two of the best and brightest in the analytics sphere in Tyler Dellow and Matt Cane. I’d be confident too. Free agency gets a relatively high score too, as the team does a great job of mostly staying away.
The public isn’t nearly as high on the team, but are still mostly on the same page aside from roster building where I would guess they would like to see it all work in action first. The great work done by the Devils has been obvious with few misses under the new regime and it’s easy to be confident when the team is on such a hot streak off the ice. That’s despite finishing near the bottom on the ice last season and is a testament to how the team’s rebuild is viewed, though getting lucky at the draft lottery obviously helps speed up the process. Outside of those top picks, the Devils could be better at drafting and developing, but fanbase confidence is slowly growing in that regard. The Devils are on their way to being a contender, but improvement there would definitely expedite the process.
We sucked but after the Summer of you know who there’s even more confidence. What could go wrong?
2020 #20 LINK
#1 Colorado #2 Tampa #3 Carolina
#29 Buffalo #30 Chicago #31 Arizona
(USA took back the basement.)
So useful! Thanks Dom!
“Fitzy has shown a willingness to be patient, while still being committed to making the team better. Every trade he’s made since being the GM has been a good one. Hopefully this translates into team success sooner rather than later!”
“Player drafting and development outside of the top 10 picks still needs serious work.”
“With the front office reset, the organization seems aligned and willing to continue rebuilding, which is necessary after blowing their load prematurely last offseason.”
“I was thrilled about Shero’s moves last year — they were all good, despite Murphy’s Law torpedoing expectations and sinking the season. Fitzgerald is making similarly good, though much more subtle. The team as of now is tangibly better at the cost of an OK prospect and some later draft picks. There are no bad long term contracts on the roster and lots of cap space, which Fitz has shown he can and will weaponize. The team is well positioned to take advantage of the flat salary cap and upcoming expansion draft.”
Talk about a fall back down to Earth. After what appeared to be a strong offseason in 2019, the Devils front office looked like one of the league’s sharpest. They made sound moves and confidence was sky high in the team’s vision to move quickly back toward contention. Last year they ranked second, mostly thanks to a very confident fan base.
And then the team had a wretched start and all of that went out the window. That was it for GM Ray Shero, who was replaced by Tom Fitzgerald and effectively ended Taylor Hall’s tenure as a Devil, wasting the prime of an elite winger. Naturally, things have soured since and the Devils have dropped 18 spots in these rankings. Most of the ratings are closer to average now, but just average is below average in terms of fan confidence. The Devils get solid marks for cap management and they weaponized it well this offseason in trading for Andreas Johnsson and Ryan Murray, but the team still struggles at drafting and developing.
For a rebuilding team, that’s a big concern, but it’s still early in Fitzgerald’s tenure to know if he’ll be an improvement in that regard.
Boom.
We’re held up by our “cap management” grade (don’t sign anyone, don’t have cap problems) but “draft and develop” takes a beating (and a big drop in 1 year).
2021 #10 LINK
#1 Tampa #2 Colorado #3 Detroit
#30 Arizona #31 San Jose #32 Buffalo
“Need to draft for upside more often. Otherwise love the direction, vision and patience.”
“I love that Fitzy seems to have a plan, and he is sticking to it. Rebuilds take time and patience.”
“In all honesty, 99 percent of what Tom Fitzgerald does, I agree with and would do the same in his position. It seems like we’re on the right path and just have to stick with it.”
The Devils have yo-yo-ed a fair bit in these rankings, oscillating between the top and bottom thirds. The past few offseasons have been quite strong, but there’s clearly a desire for all those “shrewd” moves to actually amount to something on the ice. This summer the team hit it out of the park in signing Dougie Hamilton to a reasonable deal and followed that up with a smart Tomas Tatar signing. The team is not forgetting they’re still building, but they’re being proactive toward taking the next step and that’s something to feel confident in.
The issue for the Devils for most of the 2010s has been drafting and developing though, something the team’s fan base knows all too well. The public sees a young team on the rise with a decent pipeline but hasn’t had the lived experience Devils fans have had in seeing many prospects amount to nothing.
There’s plenty of reason to be more confident, especially with how the team approaches roster building, but until they figure out a way to supplement it with strong homegrown talent, it’ll be difficult for the Devils to reach the league’s upper echelon. The team’s fans are cautious of that.
We’re kind of back! Fans are still convinced we have the worst “draft and develop” though.
2022 11th LINK
#1 Tampa #2 Colorado #3 Detroit (yep, a repeat)
#30 Chicago #31 Vegas #32 Philly
I already posted the Vegas card, but I will point out that Boston came in 27th after making the playoffs with 107 points.
“I want to be joyful that (Patrice) Bergeron and (David) Krejci are returning for a season, but it won’t make us a contender. I fear it just ignores some very difficult questions about what this roster looks like post-Bergeron. The rest of the Atlantic is only getting better, the Bruins can’t afford to tread water.”
“Don Sweeney needed to be fired, but instead they made Bruce Cassidy out to be the scapegoat and fired him. As a lifelong Bruins fan this is just about as disappointed as I have ever been.”
“The catastrophe that was the 2015 draft continues to haunt Don Sweeney but they’re still a consistent playoff team that is determined to contend every season and is loyal to the players that have gotten them there.”
The Boston Bruins have one of the best teams in the league every year. Every year! And yet, every year the fan base screams that it’s not good enough. Fair enough for Title Town, but from an outside perspective the standards set for Boston sports always seem a little funny. On average, fans rate their own team 0.4 points higher than the public does. Bruins fans have rated their own team 0.6 points worse than the public — by far the worst of any team. Only four other teams are negative with the next worst, Philadelphia, at minus-0.2 points.
It’s easy to get frustrated given the team’s lack of recent playoff success, but some of the grades are a little outlandish. The public rates Boston as a top-10 team by cap management, likely focusing on the team’s sweetheart deals, while the Bruins fan base ranks the team 24th, perhaps focusing on the few bad deals.They’re harsh critics and though that’s deserved for the team’s recent drafting record, it seems unnecessary for something like roster building when the team still has a very strong roster.
Part of the disconnect is what the Bruins could have been. Much of the core was already in place and what the current regime has done to augment that simply hasn’t been good enough. It’s why the 2015 draft continues to haunt the fan base — a particular sore spot for many who left a comment. Yeah, the Bruins are good … but how good would they have been with Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor and Thomas Chabot, too? That’s the problem here.
“I’m glad the Devils brought in a few veterans from winning teams to help teach the youngsters what it takes to win.”
“I will remain skeptical until I see results on the ice. The plan looks good on paper but not in the standings to this point.”
“If real progress isn’t made in the win column this year, management will lose the support of the remaining, patient Devils fans who have stuck with the team through the long post-Lou rebuild.”
The Devils are frequent offseason winners and even more frequent regular-season losers. Rebuilds can be slow and painful, but it seems as if the fan base is losing some patience here with the annual summer hype cycle leading to autumn disappointment. This summer is no different with the Devils once again looking like a much-improved team, though not signing Gaudreau is definitely a sour point for some fans. Hopefully, even without Gaudreau, things are different in the fall this time around.
What the Devils have put together so far is extremely encouraging and it’s commendable that they’re sticking to a patient vision for the future. Building a contender takes time and the Devils are doing it right — especially with their cache of cap space at their disposal. The next step is coming soon.
2023 1st LINK
#1 Best Team #2 Carolina #3 Tampa
#30 Calgary #31 Vancouver #32 NY Islanders
(Canada’s back!)
“Fitzy rarely makes a bad move. He has made some great under-the-radar deals such as Marino and Seigs. He also seems to get players to re-sign to team-friendly deals which indicates that he has his team buying in to the future and his vision of the team. Finally, his strength is upgrading the margins without sacrificing the future. That is what separates good teams from great teams.”
“Fitz has done a great job with long-term plan and execution. Last season the on-ice product finally mirrored offseason momentum. Long-term contracts for key players is spot on and has been shrewd with trades (Marino last offseason, Toffoli this offseason).”
After a few summers of promise, it finally happened: The Devils broke out. And they broke out big time. It’s been a long time coming and the end result is the coveted top spot of the front-office confidence rankings.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Devils have ranked pretty highly in years past despite a lack of results and it was because of how much promise the team showed. The cap sheet was clean, the prospect cupboard was full, the moves were savvy — all the stars were aligning for a big breakout. Now, the team finally has the results to show for it, delivering on years’ worth of hype.
The Devils have one of the best young cores in the league in both quantity and quality. It’s a core that’s locked up for a low price for a long time. It’s a core that will likely be augmented for years to come thanks to a strong development system and continuous strong work on the trade and free-agent market.
All of it stems from an incredible vision of how to build an elite contender, one that took a lot of patience to execute. The Devils are going to be a problem for years to come and it’s in large part due to how well run the organization currently is from top to bottom. A championship doesn’t feel far away for New Jersey.
I am realistically too young to have seen Zeppelin. They didn’t tour thr US after 1977. I was a relatively little kid then. I did see the Stones at MSG in 1981. I saw them several times over the years since then. Most recently in 2021 or 2022 in the Superdome with my youngest which was fun. Sadly I passed on seeing Page and Plant in 1992 or 1994 or whenever they toured together with that orchestra. I did see Plant at Preservation Hall which holds about 75 people and I was front row about four feet from him while he sang. Really amazing.
I saw "The Who" in 1970 and from your same 4-foot distance stood in front of Pete Townshend for the entire concert. Blew my mind. Couldn't hear anything but a muffled distant sounding hum for about a week.
I saw "Mountain" up close and personal and was almost blown out of my seat. They knew nothing but LOUD. Leslie West could play the guitar.
Joe Walsh has to be among the best ever guitarists. Saw him while sitting on the floor directly in front of him while in college. He was with "The James Gang" then. Think it was '68-'69. His later work on "Hotel California" with "The Eagles" is classic rock greatness.
Saw "Grand Funk Railroad" that same year before they went Commercial and pretty much dumped the "Railroad" from their name. They were loud and lots of battling guitar riffs. The "James Gang' often opened for them when the Gang first got started as a trio.
I've seen a bunch more and there have been a shitload of good guitar players over the years. Neil Young is my favorite. Have like 20 of his albums all in vinyl. I am still trying to fill out my overall record collection in vinyl. No better sound exists.
I knocked a totally wrecked Gracie Slick of the "Jefferson Airplane" down a flight of stairs to the locker room area in small NY college. I was carrying my pads and the rest of my goalie gear after having finished a hockey game there. I was in my socks and taking up most of the wdith of the stairway and never saw her as I turned the corner onto the stairs. I rushed down to see if she was alright having no idea who she was. Her only words were a mumbled repetition of "It's okay man. I'm good." She stumbled off and all but crawled up the stairs.
Someone from the school came into the locker room and told our coach that "Jefferson Airplane" would be going on after their warmup band, who had just taken the stage. "Would your team like to see them? We can seat you on the floor in front of the stage if you can get there before the "Airplane" takes the stage. You've got about 40 minutes."
Our music of the time dinosaur said "No. I think the boys are pretty beat and would like to get on the road. It'll be at least a 3 hour drive and we still have to stop and eat."
The guys closest to this brain dead response were our captain and a couple other guys, who immediately interrupted the conversation and said the team would be grateful for the opportunity.
Imagine my shock when the first chords exploded in the crowded gymnasium and the spot light hit Gracie as she belted out "When the truth is found, to be lies" the opening line of " Somebody To Love". She was the stoner I had knocked down the stairs. Looked nothing like the face I saw on my album cover.
Dylan playing electric is also some great music. "Like A Rolling Stone" and "Positively 4th Street" might be the best set of song lyrics ever written. I thought he wrote 4th Street for me. A girl I had gone with for my best high school years broke up with me and this song mirrors our split and the ensuing couple of years.
I paid a price for the music of my time. I permanently lost a lot of hearing. I wouldn't have done it any other way.
Music fits so many life events that you can actually follow the best years of your life with the music of those times. For me it's 1963-1980, Jr. high, high school, college, marriage, teaching and coaching, the birth of our son in 1980. It's not like there hasn't been no more music since then. There's been a ton, but you do have to separate the crap from the good stuff. However, when hearing the music from those yester-years, my mind instantly rushes back to where I was, what I was doing, and who I was doing it with just like it was happening today. I could live in that time span for eternity. Quoting Bryan Adams from "The Summer of '69", "Those were the best years of my life."
Man I am REALLY OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!, but the music makes me young again for just a bit.
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