Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - 2023 training camp edition

[Clam Jensen]

Who doesn’t?

Jim strikes me more as a Farrah Fawcett guy.

 

[glenwo2]

Jim strikes me more as a Farrah Fawcett guy.

Are you saying he's older than dirt?

 

[Blackjack]

Not everyone. I was never high on either. Thought at best McLeod was a poor mans Kesler as a 3C and Zacha at best would be a 2C but more likely a middle 6er than a legit top 6er.

I think by 2017 it was fairly apparent that neither was likely to be a game breaking top-of-the-lineup player, and that we had whiffed by passing in guys like Barzal, McAvoy, and Werenski. But I think most of us felt that they could still be top six contributors and compliments to guys like Hall, Hischier, Palmieri, and Bratt.

In fact, mid season we traded away a top six center for a puck moving defenseman. That’s a pretty telling move.

 

[Blackjack]

Simon Nemec confirmed chonky boi

 

[Devs3cups]

Simon Nemec confirmed chonky boi

Love this kid lol. This and the “Waka Waka” from yesterday are gold lol.

 

[Devs3cups]

lmfao

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Nemec for Makar, problem solved!

 

[Guttersniped]

McLeod was 1 season removed from being drafted 11th overall, Zacha was two seasons removed from being drafted sixth overall. We definitely thought both of them would be top six.

Pronman had his 2017-18 Top 50 Drafted Prospects update in January 2018. LINK

McLeod didn’t make the Top 50, he was in these honorable mentions.

I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t have hope for these guys, you’re right, I phrased it badly. I meant more that that Zacha wasn’t producing and McLeod wasn’t a Blue Chip prospect.

I think by 2017 it was fairly apparent that neither was likely to be a game breaking top-of-the-lineup player, and that we had whiffed by passing in guys like Barzal, McAvoy, and Werenski. But I think most of us felt that they could still be top six contributors and compliments to guys like Hall, Hischier, Palmieri, and Bratt.

In fact, mid season we traded away a top six center for a puck moving defenseman. That’s a pretty telling move.

Eh, if you read about McLeod at the time he sounds like a guy whose ceiling is an 3C. That’s what I remember the dream being. That was also a hope some had for Zacha.

But we didn’t even have Smith yet either so our future at defense was Walsh and Rykov. That was the obvious trouble area.

We also drafted a goalie every year until 2023 because we stopped doing that under Lou. If we’re only going by 2017-18 feels then Blackwood was a problem, because he imploded in the AHL and ended up being sent down to the ECHL to reset.

We had been a garbage team forever but the rebuilding wasn’t done. The narrative wasn’t we were a legit playoff team and clearly were ready to stay one. Hall won the Hart for heroically dragging us into the playoffs lol.

The TDL moves were criticized as wasting rebuilding assets vs the people who defended it it a reward for the players and long suffering fans.

Sure, Schneider spectacularly imploded in January, his sudden inability to win a game in 2018 was a big problem. But he was wildly inconsistent the season before.

For fun, here’s Dom’s charts from 2017-18. LINK

I love how his model doesn’t particularly like us until we’re 22-9-5 in late December, right before we start losing every game lol.

It was a pretty wild playoff race, every team was playing well in March. Philly was comparatively cooling off after a hot Dec/Jan but the other teams were even hotter than us. (We seemed miraculously hot at the time but it had been a while lol.)

PIT ended the season 28-11-3 (after 1/1), going 11-5-2 starting 3/1, to get 100 points.

PHI ended the season 26-12-6 (after 1/1), going 8-7-4 starting 3/1, to get 98 points.

NJD ended the season 22-19-3 (after 1/1), going 11-7-1 starting 3/1, to get 97 points.

CBJ ended the season 23-15-4 (after 1/1), going 13-4-2 starting 3/1, to get 97 points and win the tie-breaker.

FLA end the season 27-14-3 (after 1/1), going 15-5-2 starting 3/1, to get 96 points *whomp whomp*.

Florida was the only Eastern bubble team team that year though, Carolina was 10th with 83 points.

The Canes went 18-22-4 (after 1/1) and 9-10-0 starting in 3/1. (Their goaltending was hilariously bad.)

 

[My3Sons]

Pronman had his 2017-18 Top 50 Drafted Prospects update in January 2018. LINK

McLeod didn’t make the Top 50, he was in these honorable mentions.

View attachment 743243

I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t have hope for these guys, you’re right, I phrased it badly. I meant more that that Zacha wasn’t producing and McLeod wasn’t a Blue Chip prospect.




Eh, if you read about McLeod at the time he sounds like a guy whose ceiling is an 3C. That’s what I remember the dream being. That was also a hope some had for Zacha.

But we didn’t even have Smith yet either so our future at defense was Walsh and Rykov. That was the obvious trouble area.

We also drafted a goalie every year until 2023 because we stopped doing that under Lou. If we’re only going by 2017-18 feels then Blackwood was a problem, because he imploded in the AHL and ended up being sent down to the ECHL to reset.

We had been a garbage team forever but the rebuilding wasn’t done. The narrative wasn’t we were a legit playoff team and clearly were ready to stay one. Hall won the Hart for heroically dragging us into the playoffs lol.

The TDL moves were criticized as wasting rebuilding assets vs the people who defended it it a reward for the players and long suffering fans.

Sure, Schneider spectacularly imploded in January, his sudden inability to win a game in 2018 was a big problem. But he was wildly inconsistent the season before.

For fun, here’s Dom’s charts from 2017-18. LINK

I love how his model doesn’t particularly like us until we’re 22-9-5 in late December, right before we start losing every game lol.

View attachment 743255

It was a pretty wild playoff race, every team was playing well in March. Philly was comparatively cooling off after a hot Dec/Jan but the other teams were even hotter than us. (We seemed miraculously hot at the time but it had been a while lol.)

PIT ended the season 28-11-3 (after 1/1), going 11-5-2 starting 3/1, to get 100 points.

PHI ended the season 26-12-6 (after 1/1), going 8-7-4 starting 3/1, to get 98 points.

NJD ended the season 22-19-3 (after 1/1), going 11-7-1 starting 3/1, to get 97 points.

CBJ ended the season 23-15-4 (after 1/1), going 13-4-2 starting 3/1, to get 97 points and win the tie-breaker.

FLA end the season 27-14-3 (after 1/1), going 15-5-2 starting 3/1, to get 96 points *whomp whomp*.

Florida was the only Eastern bubble team team that year though, Carolina was 10th with 83 points.

The Canes went 18-22-4 (after 1/1) and 9-10-0 starting in 3/1. (Their goaltending was hilariously bad.)

On what planet was McLeod's ceiling as good as Hischier's?

 

[Blackjack]

On what planet was McLeod's ceiling as good as Hischier's?

Your commitment to the bit is extraordinary

 

[TF1970]

Anyone hear Jack Hughes on the newest 32 Thoughts today yet? Listen to the way he talks about playing with Bratt. If that isn't an indication to staple those two together, idk what is.

 

[Nocashstyle]

Anyone hear Jack Hughes on the newest 32 Thoughts today yet? Listen to the way he talks about playing with Bratt. If that isn't an indication to staple those two together, idk what is.

Jack sounds particularly animated in this. He actually sounds like he wanted to be interviewed lol.

Starts at 49:30 for those who haven’t listened:

https://x.com/friedgehnic/status/1702698860634628276?s=46&t=8himhhkNm9OJoOEv63g2Ng

 

[devilsblood]

It’s not hindsight.

That team had an acceptable 1st line: Hall-Hischier-Palmieri. The team also had a solid bottom six.

It didn’t have a second line however and that was a real problem. Johansson was supposed to help there but he end up only playing 48 games.

Mojo was a year away from UFA. Noesen had a real solid season but he was a waiver wire pick up.

We had some prospects that no one that highly of (McLeod, Boqvist). They were projected to play in the NHL but as top six forwards.

Our prospect pool lacked high end talent, particularly the latter, and we had almost nothing beyond Smith at defense. We drafted 20 guys in 2016 and 2017, but we didn’t use any extra 1sts or 2nds, and drafted four times in the 7th round.

Most teams have some good players, other than Nico and Hall everything you listed is pretty meh. People could have been more optimistic on certain players, but a playoff caliber defense or 2nd scoring line wasn’t there.

It was like the Vancouver under Benning, but maybe worse.

Absolutely hind sighty.

Unless you expected Hall to miss 50 games, Vats to miss 30, and both Kink and Schneids to have the worst seasons of their careers.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Schneider had already fallen off the cliff in 2017-18 and there was no evidence that Kinkaid, a career AHL goalie up until March 2018, was going to be able to handle a starter's load. And what was Plan B - Eddie Lack? Ken Appleby? Goaltending was our Achilles' heel in 2018 outside of Kinkaid's magical March and it was going to be that again the next year.

A *lot* of things had to go right down the stretch for that 2018 team to make the playoffs. And even with all of those things going right they still barely made it.

The roster looked fine on paper going into 2019 - it was essentially just the 2018 roster with no major changes - but the red flags from 2018 were still there a year later. Johansson was coming off several concussions, Vatanen had been dealing with some nagging injuries at the end of 2018 that lingered into 2019. Bratt broke his jaw in a freak accident in training camp when a puck deflected off the crossbar in practice and hit him in the face, and he missed the first half of the season. There were also some journeymen like Gibbons (who left) and Noesen (who stayed) who had career years in 2018 that no one expected to be replicated and Shero didn't try to hedge/replace.

Going into 2019 people were banking on:

1.) Hall having another Hart-caliber season
2.) Nico, Zacha, and Butcher stepping up and improving their games
3.) Kinkaid developing into a legit starter.

If all those things went right, then maybe we could sneak in again as the #7/#8 seed.

We didn't add anyone in free agency or via trade going into 2019. We basically ran it back with the same roster that didn't clinch until Game 81. To pretend that the 2019 team was a playoff lock is just not right - a lot of things went right down the stretch in 2018 and it was foolish to expect all of those things would repeat. The only player who had a better 2019 was Blake Coleman, quite unexpectedly.

The fact that the internal improvements Shero banked on didn't work out was probably one of the factors that lead him to be so aggressive in the summer of 2019, and we all know how that worked out. But I would watch that shitty 2019 season on repeat a hundred times if I needed to - those failures are the reason we have Jack Hughes. If anything had gone any differently, we would have gotten a different prospect and we wouldn't be where we are now.

 

[njdevils1982]

Pronman had his 2017-18 Top 50 Drafted Prospects update in January 2018. LINK

McLeod didn’t make the Top 50, he was in these honorable mentions.

View attachment 743243

I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t have hope for these guys, you’re right, I phrased it badly. I meant more that that Zacha wasn’t producing and McLeod wasn’t a Blue Chip prospect.




Eh, if you read about McLeod at the time he sounds like a guy whose ceiling is an 3C. That’s what I remember the dream being. That was also a hope some had for Zacha.

But we didn’t even have Smith yet either so our future at defense was Walsh and Rykov. That was the obvious trouble area.

We also drafted a goalie every year until 2023 because we stopped doing that under Lou. If we’re only going by 2017-18 feels then Blackwood was a problem, because he imploded in the AHL and ended up being sent down to the ECHL to reset.

We had been a garbage team forever but the rebuilding wasn’t done. The narrative wasn’t we were a legit playoff team and clearly were ready to stay one. Hall won the Hart for heroically dragging us into the playoffs lol.

The TDL moves were criticized as wasting rebuilding assets vs the people who defended it it a reward for the players and long suffering fans.

Sure, Schneider spectacularly imploded in January, his sudden inability to win a game in 2018 was a big problem. But he was wildly inconsistent the season before.

For fun, here’s Dom’s charts from 2017-18. LINK

I love how his model doesn’t particularly like us until we’re 22-9-5 in late December, right before we start losing every game lol.

View attachment 743255

It was a pretty wild playoff race, every team was playing well in March. Philly was comparatively cooling off after a hot Dec/Jan but the other teams were even hotter than us. (We seemed miraculously hot at the time but it had been a while lol.)

PIT ended the season 28-11-3 (after 1/1), going 11-5-2 starting 3/1, to get 100 points.

PHI ended the season 26-12-6 (after 1/1), going 8-7-4 starting 3/1, to get 98 points.

NJD ended the season 22-19-3 (after 1/1), going 11-7-1 starting 3/1, to get 97 points.

CBJ ended the season 23-15-4 (after 1/1), going 13-4-2 starting 3/1, to get 97 points and win the tie-breaker.

FLA end the season 27-14-3 (after 1/1), going 15-5-2 starting 3/1, to get 96 points *whomp whomp*.

Florida was the only Eastern bubble team team that year though, Carolina was 10th with 83 points.

The Canes went 18-22-4 (after 1/1) and 9-10-0 starting in 3/1. (Their goaltending was hilariously bad.)

some impressive work from the flatliners on that graph.

*the price is right loser theme music*

 

[Bleedred]

Schneider had already fallen off the cliff in 2017-18 and there was no evidence that Kinkaid, a career AHL goalie up until March 2018, was going to be able to handle a starter's load. And what was Plan B - Eddie Lack? Ken Appleby? Goaltending was our Achilles' heel in 2018 outside of Kinkaid's magical March and it was going to be that again the next year.

I remember saying the same things in 2018. And I just spoke about it the other day when we signed Kinkaid. Asking him to replicate his 17-18 in 18-19 while playing 40+ games again was asking for trouble.

Cory was already no longer good by 17-18. Yeah, he played well in the 2017 part of the season, but even if he didn’t get injured for over a month and was able to play, who’s to say he still wouldn’t have ended the season as a .90-something goalie? He may have finished off even worse if he played 20-25 more games and not just like 6 or 7 after he came back in March. I know we had the never ending “Cory is gonna bounce back because he was really good the last 16 games and he was just injured and blah blah blah!” stuff, but that was about as crazy as the “Kinkaid is a legit starting goalie in the league” stuff.

 

[Billdo]

Quite proud of this one with two guys who aren't even relevant enough to get pictures.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Schneider had already fallen off the cliff in 2017-18 and there was no evidence that Kinkaid, a career AHL goalie up until March 2018, was going to be able to handle a starter's load. And what was Plan B - Eddie Lack? Ken Appleby? Goaltending was our Achilles' heel in 2018 outside of Kinkaid's magical March and it was going to be that again the next year.

A *lot* of things had to go right down the stretch for that 2018 team to make the playoffs. And even with all of those things going right they still barely made it.

The roster looked fine on paper going into 2019 - it was essentially just the 2018 roster with no major changes - but the red flags from 2018 were still there a year later. Johansson was coming off several concussions, Vatanen had been dealing with some nagging injuries at the end of 2018 that lingered into 2019. Bratt broke his jaw in a freak accident in training camp when a puck deflected off the crossbar in practice and hit him in the face, and he missed the first half of the season. There were also some journeymen like Gibbons (who left) and Noesen (who stayed) who had career years in 2018 that no one expected to be replicated and Shero didn't try to hedge/replace.

Going into 2019 people were banking on:

1.) Hall having another Hart-caliber season
2.) Nico, Zacha, and Butcher stepping up and improving their games
3.) Kinkaid developing into a legit starter.

If all those things went right, then maybe we could sneak in again as the #7/#8 seed.

We didn't add anyone in free agency or via trade going into 2019. We basically ran it back with the same roster that didn't clinch until Game 81. To pretend that the 2019 team was a playoff lock is just not right - a lot of things went right down the stretch in 2018 and it was foolish to expect all of those things would repeat. The only player who had a better 2019 was Blake Coleman, quite unexpectedly.

The fact that the internal improvements Shero banked on didn't work out was probably one of the factors that lead him to be so aggressive in the summer of 2019, and we all know how that worked out. But I would watch that shitty 2019 season on repeat a hundred times if I needed to - those failures are the reason we have Jack Hughes. If anything had gone any differently, we would have gotten a different prospect and we wouldn't be where we are now.

More had to do with incentivizing Hall to possible re-sign. He wanted to move the older guys on the roster in 2020 which led to an exchange with an ownership about being in a perpetual state of rebuilding. It's why we kept Palmieri for the extra year we should've. Shero also couldn't figure out the defense for whatever f***ing reason. As much as we get on Fitz on the picks he's probably blown on someone like Stillman, his ability to fix the defense since he's came in for Shero in 2020 has been nothing short of amazing.

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Not everyone. I was never high on either. Thought at best McLeod was a poor mans Kesler as a 3C and Zacha at best would be a 2C but more likely a middle 6er than a legit top 6er.

Marner was the guy I wanted so f***ing bad in 2015, I remember mini golfing with a few friends during that draft and being super upset when the Leafs took him.

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

do we think its likely Palat gets extended time with Hughes this year?

i think itd be good to have someone do some of the dirty work for him; maybe have Mercer or Tofolli on the right side!

 

[Hisch13r]

do we think its likely Palat gets extended time with Hughes this year?

i think itd be good to have someone do some of the dirty work for him; maybe have Mercer or Tofolli on the right side!

Bratt should be on his left and Toffoli on his right. Toffoli should score a ton playing with those 2. Mercer works better with Nico. Palat’s a 3rd liner and unless we’re trying to spread the talent out both he and Haula should stay down there

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

Bratt should be on his left and Toffoli on his right. Toffoli should score a ton playing with those 2. Mercer works better with Nico. Palat’s a 3rd liner and unless we’re trying to spread the talent out both he and Haula should stay down there

Man, I want Holtz to work out so much in the top 6. A Palat-Haula-Toffoli line would be eat teams in the playoffs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Where did I say he wouldn’t make the team? I’m saying that nobody is guaranteed a roster spot when you are a prospect Generational talent aside. I think I provided a pretty good example as to why the tournament is relevant. I’m not saying that Nemec is going to make the team over Hughes. But it isn’t 100% guaranteed that he takes the spot over Nemec. These tournaments are held for a reason. If Hughes didn’t have a Second overall pick competing against him for one roster spot I would pretty much say Hughes is 100% on the team. But I’m willing to bet even the team is thinking it’s 95% to 5%.
My argument has been that virtually every single top prospect plays in these tournaments. It’s great experience. If NHL GM’s didn’t think they would leave all these guys home. But they don’t.

Like most of your points but disagree with Luke Hughes not being guaranteed a spot - much like Jack in Jack's rookie season.

It was revealing that despite Simon Nemec being with the organization all season it was Luke Hughes, not Nemec, who was inserted into the Devils' lineup in the Carolina series.

 

[Guadana]

Schneider had already fallen off the cliff in 2017-18 and there was no evidence that Kinkaid, a career AHL goalie up until March 2018, was going to be able to handle a starter's load. And what was Plan B - Eddie Lack? Ken Appleby? Goaltending was our Achilles' heel in 2018 outside of Kinkaid's magical March and it was going to be that again the next year.

A *lot* of things had to go right down the stretch for that 2018 team to make the playoffs. And even with all of those things going right they still barely made it.

The roster looked fine on paper going into 2019 - it was essentially just the 2018 roster with no major changes - but the red flags from 2018 were still there a year later. Johansson was coming off several concussions, Vatanen had been dealing with some nagging injuries at the end of 2018 that lingered into 2019. Bratt broke his jaw in a freak accident in training camp when a puck deflected off the crossbar in practice and hit him in the face, and he missed the first half of the season. There were also some journeymen like Gibbons (who left) and Noesen (who stayed) who had career years in 2018 that no one expected to be replicated and Shero didn't try to hedge/replace.

Going into 2019 people were banking on:

1.) Hall having another Hart-caliber season
2.) Nico, Zacha, and Butcher stepping up and improving their games
3.) Kinkaid developing into a legit starter.

If all those things went right, then maybe we could sneak in again as the #7/#8 seed.

We didn't add anyone in free agency or via trade going into 2019. We basically ran it back with the same roster that didn't clinch until Game 81. To pretend that the 2019 team was a playoff lock is just not right - a lot of things went right down the stretch in 2018 and it was foolish to expect all of those things would repeat. The only player who had a better 2019 was Blake Coleman, quite unexpectedly.

The fact that the internal improvements Shero banked on didn't work out was probably one of the factors that lead him to be so aggressive in the summer of 2019, and we all know how that worked out. But I would watch that shitty 2019 season on repeat a hundred times if I needed to - those failures are the reason we have Jack Hughes. If anything had gone any differently, we would have gotten a different prospect and we wouldn't be where we are now.

Defense was pretty weak, only one line produced, there were no really promising offensive prospects outside Hischier. And Shero did do nothing to fix any problem. There were no chances for the play off. With or without healthy Hall.

 

[Hisch13r]

Man, I want Holtz to work out so much in the top 6. A Palat-Haula-Toffoli line would be eat teams in the playoffs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’d be moving down Bratt at that point too to play with Toffoli.