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

[My3Sons]

What, no Appice? (I'll date myself with that Vanilla Fudge reference)

or Beck for that matter.

 

[Hisch13r]

Of course things need to change, we're a bad team. We need better goaltending and better coaching. That has nothing to do with work ethic. 31 teams don't win the Stanley Cup, are you suggesting every one of them is filled with lazy freeloaders and the one winner is blue collar culture team?

What did our winning culture under Lou Lamoriello get us from 2012-2015? We had a no-nonsense Hall of Fame GM, a Jack Adams runner-up, the best goalie of all time, and decades of success. All it got us is slow shitty grinding hockey that sucked to watch and led to embarrassing finishes. What did winning culture get us in 2010 when Stanley Cup champion and captain Jamie Langenbrunner had a pissing contest with Hall of Fame coach Jacques Lemaire that lead to the worst 2nd half collapse in franchise hitsory?

How did Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Washington break through and win their first Stanley Cups this decade after 50 years of losing culture? How did Ryan O'Reilly get to be a Conn Smythe winning franchise center after getting traded by COL for being a bad leader and being banished from buffalo of all places? How did Mike Richards and Jeff Carter get traded out of Philly due to locker room reasons and then immediately win 2 Cups in 3 years in LA? How did Marian Hossa go from a heartless mercenary chasing the money to Hall of Famer and one of the best two-way players of his generation?

It's an illusion, that's it. If you win, that means you earned it because you worked hard. Pay no attention to the other 700 players in the league that worked just as hard as you but didn't win. No, it's definitely because you're special and try the most hardest out of anyone. Culture and work ethic make it easier for fans of bad teams to believe they have a chance against superior talent if they can just play hard enough. Sometimes it happens for a game, or a playoff series or two. But it's not sustainable.

Obviously if there's a bad apple then you need to get rid of them. But we didn't miss the playoffs because Zacha didn't backcheck hard enough. We missed because of our historically bad goaltending, atrocious power play, lack of quality depth options, and injuries to key players.

The culture broke the goalies bodies.

 

[Bleedred]

Those first 2 are f***ing awful moves.

Gibson is exactly what we need though. He can fill the buyout void just in time for Schneider’s buyout to come off the books lol.

Buying Schneider, only to acquire another Schneider that’s signed for 66% longer and has been bad for almost as long as Schneider was by the time he was bought out.

Not to mention that Gibson is a pretty good bet to be spending plenty of time at the doctor office hanging out with Bernier and Blackwood.

 

[Billdo]

Those first 2 are f***ing awful moves.

Why would Forsberg be an awful move?

 

[MadDevil]

"Winning cultures" are developed over time through good management that leads to winning. You can't just flip a switch and suddenly have it. Time will tell if our current management can provide that good management. I think laying the blame for this season on culture is ignoring legitimate reasons for the season going off the rails.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

If I have to watch another year of a Mark Recchi power play I might actually just give up on the whole thing.

 

[Hisch13r]

Why would Forsberg be an awful move?

Forsberg’s very good but he’s not the 50 goal 100 pt pace guy that he was this year. I think he’s going to get heavily overpaid. 3 years prior to this he was a 30 goal 64 pt pace guy. He spent 80% of his ice time with Duchene this year where they had an on ice SH% of nearly 16. That’s just absurdly lucky. Also individually they shot 18.6 and 18.9%. If he can be had for like 7 mil then sure but I don’t see that happening

 

[jkrdevil]

I guess Constantine was a year end firing since Lou didn’t hand out interim titles. I’m not sure it was announced he was firing or if it was just announced they were hiring Pat Burns.

Lemaire was technically resigning in 1998. Herb Brooks was him quitting when Lou rightly said the team was good enough. Before that it would have to be Tom Mcvie they year before when they lost to the Rangers in 1992.

 

[Devs3cups]

Watching Ruff's presser and he mentioned Hischier has battled an injury in the 3/4 of the season. That makes Nico's season even more impressive.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Maybe we’ll know whether the coaching staff will be back at the end of the week. I wouldn’t be suprised if it took longer though. Fitzy seems like a very patient GM who likes to take his time looking things over.

I think it will take more than a few days but I don’t see why Fitz would speak until they’ve completed their internal discussions on the coaching staff.

Too many answers would just be “we are discussing internally”.

Or maybe they just don’t mind a boring exit interview but in that case Fitz could talk today.

Fitz spoke on Day 2 last year.

Hopefully he has Shakir news either way.

 

[pulkit1989]

Watching Ruff's presser and he mentioned Hischier has battled an injury in the 3/4 of the season. That makes Nico's season even more impressive.

If this is true then maybe Nico should avoid the world championship games and take the time to be fully healthy

 

[Devs3cups]

If this is true then maybe Nico should avoid the world championship games and take the time to be fully healthy

Maybe he misspoke, but I think he's good now, maybe it was an injury at the middle of the year or at the start.

 

[Triumph]

I guess Constantine was a year end firing since Lou didn’t hand out interim titles. I’m not sure it was announced he was firing or if it was just announced they were hiring Pat Burns.

Lemaire was technically resigning in 1998. Herb Brooks was him quitting when Lou rightly said the team was good enough. Before that it would have to be Tom Mcvie they year before when they lost to the Rangers in 1992.

Constantine was not fired at season's end. It wasn't until Burns was announced as HC that Constantine was announced as having been fired, and I think if Burns weren't available, Constantine is the Devils' head coach in 2002-03.

 

[jkrdevil]

Constantine was not fired at season's end. It wasn't until Burns was announced as HC that Constantine was announced as having been fired, and I think if Burns weren't available, Constantine is the Devils' head coach in 2002-03.

And going back to 1992, Brooks was the AHL coach previously so that was likely a move an all at once move by Lou.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Should get RFA qualifiers from FItz too.

Wood
Bratt
Zacha
Boqvist

Thompson
Zetterlund

And maybe if any UFAs are not getting offers.

Vesey
Subban
White
Geertsen
Hammond
Gillies

Don't expect any comments on the Utica NHL UFAs yet.

Gauthier
Flynn
DeLeo
Greer

 

[NJDevs26]

Constantine was not fired at season's end. It wasn't until Burns was announced as HC that Constantine was announced as having been fired

LOL that’s so Lou…when you have time, use it

 

[Bleedred]

I still have this theory that Lou called Burns when he fired Larry (before he hired Constantine) and Burns said no. He either said no or call me back in the summer and I’ll think about starting fresh next season.

Because Burns was already unemployed at that time and had been for over a year already. He was available the entire 2001 off-season for anybody to hire. I’m assuming he had time remaining on his contract with Boston and just wanted to sit home and collect the rest of his pay.

Between that and the random hiring of him almost two months into our off-season, I would say it wasn’t the first time Lou thought to reach out to him.

I find it hard to believe that Lou didn’t think of Pat Burns until he finally did get officially hired and that he wasn’t already eyeing him rather than a guy like Kevin Constantine back when he first fired Larry Robinson.

I remember Constantine being like “Da fuq?” When Burns was hired. He was shocked.

 

[StevenToddIves]

Forsberg’s very good but he’s not the 50 goal 100 pt pace guy that he was this year. I think he’s going to get heavily overpaid. 3 years prior to this he was a 30 goal 64 pt pace guy. He spent 80% of his ice time with Duchene this year where they had an on ice SH% of nearly 16. That’s just absurdly lucky. Also individually they shot 18.6 and 18.9%. If he can be had for like 7 mil then sure but I don’t see that happening

I agree with you on Forsberg likely being paid in a range which is... uncomfortable.

I'd prefer to offer Nichushkin 5 years at $5.5 million than the 7 years at $8.5 million Forsberg could get.

 

[RSeen]

The one thing that is clear in the playoffs is that the style is much more physical than the regular season. Adding someone like Marchment could be a good addition for when we are a playoff team.

 

[Bleedred]

Since both the Binnington and Gibson options have been brought up here (Gibson just earlier today) I’d say we’re better off signing Kuemper or Campbell to a 5 year deal or even trading for Lehner (only two years remaining, opposed to five for the other two) than trading for either of them.

I’m not saying I wanna sign either to a 5 year deal, but Gibson is toast and Binnington has been JAG since other than that cup winning year.

 

[SKNJD9]

Listening to lindys presser the one questions was truly eye opening.

Jack,Nico,Mack have been healthy together only 20% of the games Lindy has been coach. Couple that with Crawford last yr, the other injuries this yr...Bernier..Dougie...etc.

I'm starting to feel the injuries have saved Ruffs job...albeit with a extremely short leash next yr

 

[Guttersniped]

Well Husso mania should start sweeping this board soon.

 

[MadDevil]

Well Husso mania should start sweeping this board soon.

Whatcha gonna do when the Hussomaniacs run wild on you!?

 

[Emperoreddy]

Listening to lindys presser the one questions was truly eye opening.

Jack,Nico,Mack have been healthy together only 20% of the games Lindy has been coach. Couple that with Crawford last yr, the other injuries this yr...Bernier..Dougie...etc.

I'm starting to feel the injuries have saved Ruffs job...albeit with a extremely short leash next yr

There is zero reason to bring him back with a "short leash" you either have confidence in him at this point or uou don't and you cut bait.

 

[TBF1972]

I don't think it's a one size fits all thing. If Hughes needs some freedom and an acknowledgement that at times he will make a bad risky pass to play his game to his potential you have to do that. Conversely, you probably don't want to do that with Zacha. In retrospect, maybe Hynes was right about him. Nico used the words "self-starter" or something close to that about getting ready for next season. He's clearly that sort of player but not everyone is and they likely can't just become one because he says they should. The lower down the roster you are the more "try hard" you probably need to be.

Try Hard
Try Hard 2
Try Hard with a Vengeance
Live free or Try Hard
A good Day to Try Hard

So within 3 seasons we get back to the playoffs with a vengeance and in 5 we will raise the cup.

Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*cker