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

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Team Concept said:
I've got
McLeod at 2.5
Boqvist at 1.5
Bastian at 2.0
Bahl at 2.0
That is 8 mil. You are at only 5 mil for the above players. I'll eat my hat if those are the numbers.
Click to expand...

My guesses are:
McLeod: 1.8
Boqvist: 1.0
Bastian: 1.8
Bahl: 1.2
Which totals out to 5.8

We should have a prediction thread to see who comes closest for each player.
 
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R8Devs said:
I think re-signing the remaining RFAs will have the devils around 1.5-2.5m in space with this roster:

Bratt-Hughes-Toffoli
Meier-Hischier-Mercer
Palat-Haula-Holtz
Boqvist-Mcleod-Bastian
Foote-Lazar

Siegenthaler-Hamilton
Hughes-Marino
Bahl-Nemec
Smith

Schmid
Vanacek

There is 5m in potential performance bonuses so this amount of cap space will give them a nice cushion for that even though I doubt that it will be anywhere near that in actuality and allows them to accrue cap space for any in-season additions. But also enough space for a depth player add as well.
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You can see the issues with this roster.

- Top line can't win faceoffs. Neither Bratt nor Toffoli take draws.
- Moving Haula up forces a top six player into the bottom six. Most likely Mercer to 3C.
- Third line seems like one that will do a lot of forechecking / board work regardless of whether it's Haula or Mercer at C. That doesn't seem to play to Holtz's strength.
- Boqvist will have a hard time thriving on 4LW. He really should be top 9. But, there's no space.
- PK is going to be an adventure without Graves, Severson, Sharangovich.

But, that's what the season is for. It'll be interesting to see this stuff play out and how the team develops!
 
tailfins said:
You can see the issues with this roster.

- Top line can't win faceoffs. Neither Bratt nor Toffoli take draws.
- Moving Haula up forces a top six player into the bottom six. Most likely Mercer to 3C.
- Third line seems like one that will do a lot of forechecking / board work regardless of whether it's Haula or Mercer at C. That doesn't seem to play to Holtz's strength.
- Boqvist will have a hard time thriving on 4LW. He really should be top 9. But, there's no space.
- PK is going to be an adventure without Graves, Severson, Sharangovich.

But, that's what the season is for. It'll be interesting to see this stuff play out and how the team develops!
Click to expand...

Actually one thing that did shock me a little was how willing Holtz was to go get the puck and make surprisingly good passes after winning it. I had him penciled in as a pure get open and shoot guy, completely ineffective at the rest of it, but he showed me a lot of willingness to work and use his teammates last year.

I would not mind Palat-Mercer-Holtz. That could be a hard-working and very dangerous line, especially with it being a little off-tempo compared to the other two lines. That would be an annoying change-up to defend.
 
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tailfins said:
You can see the issues with this roster.

- Top line can't win faceoffs. Neither Bratt nor Toffoli take draws.
- Moving Haula up forces a top six player into the bottom six. Most likely Mercer to 3C.
- Third line seems like one that will do a lot of forechecking / board work regardless of whether it's Haula or Mercer at C. That doesn't seem to play to Holtz's strength.
- Boqvist will have a hard time thriving on 4LW. He really should be top 9. But, there's no space.
- PK is going to be an adventure without Graves, Severson, Sharangovich.

But, that's what the season is for. It'll be interesting to see this stuff play out and how the team develops!
Click to expand...
Yeah I mean the lines will change through out the season and in games (and obviously there could still be changes to come with free agency/draft still to come). I don't think Jack has ever really been held back by his line not being able to win faceoffs, in the d-zone you can send Mcleod out to take the faceoff and make a line change.

I don't think teams think of it just as the top 6 being scoring lines anymore, top 9 is what it is about and there will be good players on the third line. Devils had Meier and Mercer at times on the third line last year. Vegas had Eichel, Stone, and William Karlsson all on different lines -- it's just the way the league is/moving to.

I think Boqvist and Mcleod can work well together and hopefully Bastian can go to pre-injury form with a longer time to recover now.
 
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tailfins said:
You can see the issues with this roster.

- Top line can't win faceoffs. Neither Bratt nor Toffoli take draws.
- Moving Haula up forces a top six player into the bottom six. Most likely Mercer to 3C.
- Third line seems like one that will do a lot of forechecking / board work regardless of whether it's Haula or Mercer at C. That doesn't seem to play to Holtz's strength.
- Boqvist will have a hard time thriving on 4LW. He really should be top 9. But, there's no space.
- PK is going to be an adventure without Graves, Severson, Sharangovich.

But, that's what the season is for. It'll be interesting to see this stuff play out and how the team develops!
Click to expand...

- I couldn't care less about the faceoffs. Use a FOGO situationally if need be. Jack sucking at faceoffs has never impacted his ability to tilt play.
- Haula shouldn't be moved up. He should be the 3C
- I don't know how Holtz ends up fitting. I think it'll be Clarke there instead
- Boqvist won't have an issue fitting into the fourth line. The guy has turned into a solid defensive forward and decent forechecker. He's a better fit for the 4th line than the top 9. Just not good enough offensively or overall player
- I don't know what they do with the D for the PK. I imagine they bring in a 3RD and use Bahl. I have no doubts we'll be able to replace Yegor with someone internally for the PK. Boqvist for example in his limited sample had good numbers and seems like a good PK fit.
 
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I think we go into the season with what we have now, assuming we sign our RFA's. While we could use another veteran d-man, I don't see us signing anyone to more than a $2 million AAV. (Timo @ $8m, the 5 4 RFAs at a total of $7 $6m) and then we all reasonably expect at least one of Holtz or Clarke which is another $900k.

Also, how do the bonus overages work? Doesn't that take up the remaining cap anyway?

Anyways, I am trying to see how our offense scores next season. (2023 total: 289 goals for)

Meier: 40
Hughes: 40
Hischier: 25
Toffoli: 30
Bratt: 25
Mercer: 30
Haula/Palat: 25
Total (8 players): 215

Other forwards: 40
Bastian/Boqvist/McCleod/Lazer: 20
Holtz/Clarke/Foote: 20

Hamilton: 15
L Hughes/Nemec: 10
Other defense: 10
Total: 35

Grand total: 290

Just to be clear, my rationale was how to get to 290 goals, not necessarily what I think is a conservative estimate. For example, I think Toffoli is more likely to score 25, I have a hard time seeing how Timo gets 40 and Mercer getting 30 would be a pleasant surprise.
 
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forceten said:
Actually one thing that did shock me a little was how willing Holtz was to go get the puck and make surprisingly good passes after winning it. I had him penciled in as a pure get open and shoot guy, completely ineffective at the rest of it, but he showed me a lot of willingness to work and use his teammates last year.
Click to expand...
I feel this may be a situation where the expectations were so low, even poor performance was able to impress.
 
tailfins said:
At this point, I think all that's needed is signing a 3RD for close to league min and a #3 goalie who can at least start in the AHL (but ideally waivers exempt). Give Nemec a shot to win 3RD. See who takes the reins of the Schmid / Vanecek duo.

Between injuries and inconsistent performances from young players, there's a lot of different ways this season could go. Trading UFAs / RFAs to get back assets makes sense. But, beyond that, I think Fitz should hold tight and see how the season plays out.
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I agree. Someone like Clifton on a two year deal makes some sense for him to take over the Smith role next year or sooner if Nemec is ready.

I am kind of partial to a Gudas for one year. Not sure if he’d sign that deal at this point in his career, but he feels like the ideal partner for Luke on the third pairing.
 
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Team Concept said:
I've got
McLeod at 2.5
Boqvist at 1.5
Bastian at 2.0
Bahl at 2.0
That is 8 mil. You are at only 5 mil for the above players. I'll eat my hat if those are the numbers.
Click to expand...
There’s absolutely no way those guys get those numbers. For one, Fitzgerald has done a fantastic job at getting guys to take less. Also, I could see a few situations where the Devils give maybe 3 years to a guy like McLeod or Boqvist to give them security and keep the AAV down.

I’d probably have them at something like this:

McLeod 1.5 x 3
Bastian 1.25 x 2
Boqvist 1.25 x 2
Bahl 1 million x 2

On a shorter term McLeod would be more expensive. Boqvist on a cheap 3 year deal to give him security and take him right to UFA is also an interesting idea. Could make himself extremely valuable to the Devils when they get into more of a cap crunch.
 
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Devs3cups said:



Novo and James confirm.
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giphy.gif
 
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