Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - offseason edition

[OlfactoryHughes]

Also…. No way Steph is 5% lifetime, he’s way deadlier in practice then games…. And he practices enough this past decade to pull up his first decade, where he still likely hit at 5%…. 5%…. Steph curry?!?! What?

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Steph Curry hit over 100 consecutive 3s in practice. That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen in any sport.

 

[OlfactoryHughes]

Back to hockey, love the last few pages of debate, and well thought out posts….

With the talent we have in the pipeline, and given how young we are, I’m taking Slaf at 2 and opening the contention window a little wider…. And accepting that this year, isn’t as important as the 5-10 years after it.

This off-season, should be about coaching and goaltending, more so then adding a shiny new toy… we already got that with the lottery.

Show me better team defense and a goalie we can rely on, and give slaf, Holtz, Luke a year and then let’s talk about what this team needs to add in terms of high priced free agents, especially ones that cost significant assets, and don’t stop pucks from going in our net.

 

[billingtons ghost]

This is absurd, there is absolutely no chance that Bergeron is winning 100% of his faceoffs in any position, much like star basketball players do not hit all of their clutch shots, they just get remembered for the ones they hit and forgotten for the ones they miss. But with faceoffs especially, it's just a fairy tale belief. Bergeron went 14-13 in Game 7 this year. Jordan Staal went 60% in Game 7 against the Bruins, 55% against the Rangers.

But that's why you get frigging remembered.

I mean, the factor alone that a faceoff win almost equates to as close a thing you can get in hockey to a 'set play' where a win back to the point puts you in a position where you will likely have the most traffic in front of a goalie and will take the goalie's eyes away and have a better chance for a deflection makes winning a faceoff in a critical spot not 'meaningless'. If you want to argue that FO% stats are meaningless, and having a good one over long term doesn't impact a team's fortunes, I'm completely on board.

But faceoffs are not meaningless. I want our best guys to be able to play in every situation and a big faceoff in our zone or in the opposition zone or during a PP is much more important than you guys paint it out to be.

 

[Triumph]

But that's why you get frigging remembered.

I mean, the factor alone that a faceoff win almost equates to as close a thing you can get in hockey to a 'set play' where a win back to the point puts you in a position where you will likely have the most traffic in front of a goalie and will take the goalie's eyes away and have a better chance for a deflection makes winning a faceoff in a critical spot not 'meaningless'. If you want to argue that FO% stats are meaningless, and having a good one over long term doesn't impact a team's fortunes, I'm completely on board.

But faceoffs are not meaningless. I want our best guys to be able to play in every situation and a big faceoff in our zone or in the opposition zone or during a PP is much more important than you guys paint it out to be.

Shots directly off faceoffs go in at a much lower rate than shots in general. And yes, this is counting deflections. So, no, they are not meaningless, because they do go in, and faceoffs are especially good to win on the PK and PP because of how they tip the balance of what happens in the next 10-20 seconds, and yes, I want all the guys not named Hischier and McLeod to improve on faceoffs this season.

But they are incredibly marginal, because a team cannot get that much better at them. The best teams win 5 out of 9 faceoffs and the worst teams lose 5 out of 9 faceoffs. This has almost no correlation to what happens after the faceoffs, bad teams can be good at faceoffs and good teams can be bad at them.

 

[RSeen]

If we can get Debrincat, in might make sense to trade Holtz in the package for him vs. #2. Having both Holtz and Debrincat, can you provide them with the necessary PP time? With #2, we could get a player that is diverse relative to these two.

 

[glenwo2]

I do not view Pagnotta as a great source. Even if someone views him as a reliable source, this is what he said.

This is going to be a player that a lot of teams that are looking for offence are going to be calling Chicago about,” Pagnotta said, “One team that I’m very curious to see if they do fully engage is the New Jersey Devils. They’ve got that second-overall pick in play, they want to bring in somebody that is controllable that they can slot into their lineup and have an immediate impact. That’s something to watch to see if the New Jersey gets in on the action on DeBrincat.”

Hawks gauging trade interest in DeBrincat — The Fourth Period

Alex DeBrincat will be highly coveted this summer as the Blackhawks entertain trade calls.

www.thefourthperiod.com

So Pag is saying "IF" New Jersey gets in on the action on DeBrincat.

Not that they ARE going to get involved.

Once again, another attempt (infuriatingly-successful, I might add) at getting clicks by a rumor-monger.

Nothing to see here, folks.

Everyone is linking us to everything simply because we have the assets necessary to make it happen. Not because there is legitimate reason to believe it will.

Exactly my thought as well.

 

[RSeen]

ughhh. Not happy with this one.

DeBrincnt - great talent, great player.

But him lined up next to Jack Hughes looks like 2 kids in a trenchoat trying to get into an R-rated movie.

In a vacuum I am not happy. If this trade occurs along with signing some larger Free Agents.... maybe it can work.

He has two 40 goal seasons, and another that he was on pace to surpass that. If we are so worried about size, add some players to the bottom six to play that role and draft Slaf.

 

[ChicksDigTheTrap]

This off-season, should be about coaching and goaltending, more so then adding a shiny new toy… we already got that with the lottery.

Agree. We got a shiny new toy last off season.

 

[Hisch13r]

ughhh. Not happy with this one.

DeBrincnt - great talent, great player.

But him lined up next to Jack Hughes looks like 2 kids in a trenchoat trying to get into an R-rated movie.

In a vacuum I am not happy. If this trade occurs along with signing some larger Free Agents.... maybe it can work.

Debrincat has literally been dominating with fellow short king Patrick Kane his entire career. Their size is irrelevant

If we can get Debrincat, in might make sense to trade Holtz in the package for him vs. #2. Having both Holtz and Debrincat, can you provide them with the necessary PP time? With #2, we could get a player that is diverse relative to these two.

I agree Holtz would be a better one to move since they’re so similar but if had to be 2 then I’m still doing it no question

 

[Hisch13r]

Back to hockey, love the last few pages of debate, and well thought out posts….

With the talent we have in the pipeline, and given how young we are, I’m taking Slaf at 2 and opening the contention window a little wider…. And accepting that this year, isn’t as important as the 5-10 years after it.

This off-season, should be about coaching and goaltending, more so then adding a shiny new toy… we already got that with the lottery.

Show me better team defense and a goalie we can rely on, and give slaf, Holtz, Luke a year and then let’s talk about what this team needs to add in terms of high priced free agents, especially ones that cost significant assets, and don’t stop pucks from going in our net.

Almost like you’re not limited to making one move an offseason.

 

[Guttersniped]

They can't get said power forward via UFA with the savings between a Tkachuk v DeBrincat contracts? There's multiple ways they can go about constructing the future roster and yes obviously Tkachuk is the better player, there's no denying that. I'm just saying people are underrating Alex DeBrincat on this forum for some reason. If Slaf or whoever they take forward wise turns into him, we'd be praising the lord.



Sedin draft, I think? I can't remember anything recently lol

Pick for player was Yashin in 01 for that pick Ottawa took Spezza with.

Is DeBrincat making that much less than Tkachuk? He’s up for a 9m qualifying offer after 2022-23, just like Tkackuk’s 9m QO now and Meier’s 10m after after 2022-23.

The big problem with this debate is the Matthew Tkachuk trade part is still a complete fantasy of just this board at this point, he’s not even rumored to be on the market.

I don’t see how Tkachuk gets secretly traded by July 7th, with Calgary giving up that easily on not keeping him.

We aren’t getting him for the 2OA unless the situation changes quite a bit quickly. The End.

 

[Guttersniped]

Y’all talking forwards and I am here patiently waiting for a goalie.

Goalies?

 

[Monsieur Verdoux]

Some updates about Bratt:

 

[Comparison Ford]

Some updates about Bratt:

i love having a beat reporter again

 

[Mr Bojanglez]

Debrincat has literally been dominating with fellow short king Patrick Kane his entire career. Their size is irrelevant

I just worry about the top 6. Obviously the guy gets results. But our remaining top 6 isn't exactly big. It's a valid concern if..... hypothetically in the future.... our top 6 has 2 guys at /around 6ft, and then 4 other guys under 6ft.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

I just worry about the top 6. Obviously the guy gets results. But our remaining top 6 isn't exactly big. It's a valid concern if..... hypothetically in the future.... our top 6 has 2 guys at /around 6ft, and then 4 other guys under 6ft.

Who is hypothetically in our future top 6 for that to be the case?

Bratt, Hughes and Debrincat under 6ft. Mercer is 6ft, Holtz is 6ft, Hischier is just over 6’1” and Sharangovich is 6’2”.

I’m guessing you have Holtz coming in for Sharangovich but your numbers are off although it is still a small top 6.

 

[Camille the Eel]

The top 3-5 picks of the draft are actually the polar opposite of a crap shoot.

The reason players who are picked so high are picked so high is because they are not only the *best* players, but also because they are the furthest along the development curve.

Shane Wright is already capable of playing a bottom 6 C role at the professional level. Juraj Slafkovsky already made mincemeat of a WC Canada blueline which would have been superior to this year's NJ Devils blueline (both had Severson and Graves). Simon Nemec broke record after record in a lesser men's league in Slovakia, but still as the youngest defenseman in the league. "Busting" for these guys would simply mean they'll be good NHL players but not bona fide superstars. We already know this. It would take literally a miracle of bad circumstance for any of these guys not to have good NHL careers.

The Devils have the #2 overall pick in the closest battle for #1 overall since Dahlin and Svechnikov in 2018. I would say Wright and Slafkovsky are also comparable in talent to Dahlin/Svechnikov. Why would NJ give up a chance at that sort of talent to add to an age-appropriate core? There's no crap shoot, there's just adding a very likely future superstar to an already-elite core.

I think maybe I expressed myself badly. The crap shoot element I meant to say is not that the top 3 to 5 guys aren’t worthy, but as to who is the best of them and that there aren’t other players out there who will develop so that they too should be in the discussion. As in not foreseeing that Makar was going to be an even bigger talent than Nico. And I love Nico. Based on what we knew at the time and what we needed, we made the right pick there. But what about Philly taking Patrick over Makar?

Is Kakko still the number 2 pick behind Jack if the league redrafts today?

There is always an element of uncertainty and unpredictability in drafting even top end picks. The term “bit of a crap shoot” was referring to that. Yes Slaf tore up a tournament or league or whatever it was, but we don’t know that some of the competitors or even a dark horse won’t prove to have been the better player when we look back on this draft in 5 or 10 years time.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

You guys all fall into the classic stats trap by applying a long term trend statistic to single event outcome. If you tallied up all of the shots Steph Curry took from three point range over his lifetime in practice and in games, it would be less than 50% by a long shot and probably something like 5%. You simply CANNOT take that information and apply it like you are applying FW% here. At the end of a game it sure af matters whether you cover Steph Curry or not bc he's going to sink that thing in a clutch situation and you will lose. Can't you guys get it thru your skulls that yeah, Bergeron or Staal are going to lose 45% over a season, but in a clutch spot with your playoffs on the line, against an inferior player in the dot he might win 100% and tip the balance of the game. That's almost exactly what happened during Rangers Pens, if you weren't watching.

It's not OMG MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD. but the way you guys @Captain3rdLine @Zajacs Bowl Cut trivialize and discount bc the stat somehow gives you false confidence s just flat out incorrect and a classic failure to analyze how statistics work. Period.

Sure you can...I just did?

The Steph Curry comparisons are literally absurd lol

Have a blessed day.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Back to hockey, love the last few pages of debate, and well thought out posts….

With the talent we have in the pipeline, and given how young we are, I’m taking Slaf at 2 and opening the contention window a little wider…. And accepting that this year, isn’t as important as the 5-10 years after it.

This off-season, should be about coaching and goaltending, more so then adding a shiny new toy… we already got that with the lottery.

Show me better team defense and a goalie we can rely on, and give slaf, Holtz, Luke a year and then let’s talk about what this team needs to add in terms of high priced free agents, especially ones that cost significant assets, and don’t stop pucks from going in our net.

you do realize teams are allowed to make more than 1 move per offseason, yes? Especially considering the coaching has literally no bearing on anything (cap, contracts, etc)

 

[Saugus]

Some updates about Bratt:

So I guess that Bratt Pack dipshit who was saying two weeks ago that it was signed and ready to be announced any day now wasn't credible? Who could have predicted that a Twitter rumor would be untrue?!

 

[Captain3rdLine]

So I guess that Bratt Pack dipshit who was saying two weeks ago that it was signed and ready to be announced any day now wasn't credible? Who could have predicted that a Twitter rumor would be untrue?!

 

[JimEIV]

Who is hypothetically in our future top 6 for that to be the case?

Bratt, Hughes and Debrincat under 6ft. Mercer is 6ft, Holtz is 6ft, Hischier is just over 6’1” and Sharangovich is 6’2”.

I’m guessing you have Holtz coming in for Sharangovich but your numbers are off although it is still a small top 6.

Height isn't the entire picture.

Hischier 175 lbs
Hughes 175 lbs
Bratt 175 lbs
Mercer - 180 lbs

Alex DeBrincat is listed at 165 lbs

That's super tiny.

Holtz 195 lbs and Sharangovich 196 are just about league average.

 

[Saugus]

Does Bratt's agent still think Lou is the GM or something? He can probably speak a little more freely without worrying about Fitz having him whacked.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

Height isn't the entire picture.

Hischier 175 lbs
Hughes 175 lbs
Bratt 175 lbs
Mercer - 180 lbs

Alex DeBrincat is listed at 165 lbs

That's super tiny.

Holtz 195 lbs and Sharangovich 196 are just about league average.

Lol well Slafkovsky is 230lbs at 18 years old.