Normal Devil
Registered User
- Mar 16, 2014
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That seems more in line with something that is workable. That #2 pick is worth several mid-late first rounders alone. The Blackhawk fans aren't going to get near what they are expecting.
Devils team discussion (news, notes and speculation) - offseason edition
- Thread starter NJDevs26
- Start date
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- May 1, 2011
- 133,273
- 62,662
2005: Bergfors - Thank god we did trade him for Kovalchuk or he also assuredly would have ended up doing shit like some of those picks in the years after him that we weren't lucky enough to trade. He washed out of the league less than 2 years after we traded him.
Mark Fayne - We got a couple of years out of him on our top pairing, so he wasn't a bad pick by any means and we really needed to cut bait with him or it would have been us that was on the hook for the BAD contract Edmonton gave him. He finished his career in the minors (or was it LTIR?) and was out of the league for good a bit before he was even 30 years old. I don't think he plays pro hockey at all anymore and hasn't for years. He was a good selection for where he was picked at though. I would say that was a successful career for a guy that was picked where he was.
2006: Matthew Corrente - BUST of the highest order. This was yet another BOMB of a Lance Ward, Adrian Foster, David Hale special. Passed through waivers several times when he was still very young (at least two times) and no one even claimed him. I think he was out of pro hockey by 28. Injuries probably didn't help him, but he also sucked. I HATED this pick from the moment it happened. And I remember if we had picked around where we finished that year we might have been able to get Claude Giroux and that really annoyed me. He was a 30th overall (which should have been the Hurricanes pick as they won the cup) and I don't really remember how we ended up with that pick. Making the final 8 that year I think we would have just missed out on Giroux anyway. I think the pick we were probably supposed to get that year might have been Patrick Berglund, only because I remember talking about him a lot after that. He became a pretty good player, but was out of the league at 30 years old. Berglund, Varlamov and Foligno were all picked in between where our original pick would have been and where we got Corrente at 30th overall. All were MUCH better NHL players (and players period) than Corrente. Did Zharkov and Vasyunov also come from this draft or were they the next year? Or possibly one in one year and the other in the next year? They both played games in the NHL, but nothing of a career.
2007: Think we lost our first round pick this year to the Sharks for taking Malakhov's cap hit. Was David Hoeffel our first draft pick that year? I know he was in the second round. I still recall DD talking about how we could have gotten Wayne Simmonds instead of him. He was AWFUL and didn't even play an NHL game. I can't remember if this was the Halischuk draft year or if he was 2006. He played a surprisingly high number of games in the NHL for Nashville and we got not even one year of 36 year old Jason Arnott back in return for him. We ended up with the pick we traded to get Zidlicky in the Arnott trade at the 2011 deadline though.
2008: Mateethless TedenBUST. One of my most hated picks ever. Didn't like this pick from the start and was enraged over it when he just completely did nothing after his first 30 games in the league and he still wound up playing another 90 games in the NHL and getting all these chances. He was an offensive player that didn't hardly score any offense after his first 30 games in the league. I was also made to feel a fool for proclaiming him a bust (when it was apparent that he already was) as much as my ''Cory Schneider is done, toast, not bouncing back'' stuff a few years ago. I'm not even gonna touch the ''Picked before John Carlson'' thing as that gets even more painful. We did get Adam Henrique that year who was probably the best player we drafted after 2004 and until 2011 or 2012 maybe?
2009: Jacob Josefson - I don't know if it was a bad pick at the time, but the Tedenby and Josefson misses were what REALLY KILLED us in the later years of Lou. This was a huge talking point back between 2013 and 2015 that because we struck out on BOTH of those first rounders, we were really hurting by it at that time. He still played in hundreds of NHL games, but was merely nothing more than a shootout specialist. What really hurts about this pick was that he was picked just right before SEVERAL guys who we would all wind up acquiring years down the road. Kyle Palmieri, Marcus Johansson and even John Moore were all better players (Moore probably not by much though) than him and we passed on ALL of them, only to acquire each of them within the next 6-8 years. And all of them were picked within 6 spots after Josefson? Oh and who did we pick later that draft? Alex Urbom, who's greatest contribution here was the laughs and overreaction that his ''Capitals claim Urbom off waivers'' thread brought. I got a kick out of that thread. People acted like we got rid of someone that was actually any good and were so mad Peter Harrold was chosen over him. We picked him back up a couple months later when they waived him and threw him back in Albany. He played out the rest of that year in the AHL and went back home to Sweden where he's been playing ever since, if he even is playing at all anymore. He was picked (although quite a bit before) before Sami Vatanen in that draft, who we would also acquire a little over 8 years later and who also had a MUCH better career in the NHL. Didn't we Eric Gelinas in this draft too?
2010: Traded that first for Kovalchuk. Got Jon Merrill in the second round? He's probably one of the best players we drafted in that time, but he's merely a career bottom pairing defenseman. A career bottom pairing defenseman that got A LOT of hype in between his draft and his NHL debut. I can't remember who else came out of this draft, but it was nobody any good or worth remembering.
2011: Adam Larsson - Pretty underwhelming. Career second pairing defenseman, but got us Taylor Hall. One guy picked shortly behind him wound up being better and we now have him. Was this the Blake Coleman draft? He didn't really become a full time NHL player until he was almost 26, but not even a handful of these guys would have a better career than him. Then the sick rapist was also from this draft, who did NOTHING at the NHL level, but hey he broke a scoring record by future hall of famer Stevens Stamkos in the OHL!
2012: Matteau, Matteau, Matteau..... WHAT. A. f***ING. BUST. And then we further FUBARED this when Lou decided he should make the NHL team out of camp as an 18 year old the next year, where he was highly overwhelmed. I feel like most of his goals (and maybe even points period) came during that stint though. And he was playing with Kovalchuk. it's almost like he was trying to rationalize this pick by immediately inserting him into the NHL. ''See guys? We shouldn't have forfeited this pick. He's already NHL ready and contributing right away!''. Severson was picked that draft and so was Kerfoot, who were both better MOST of the guys we drafted in the several years before and after.
2013: Traded the first round pick for Schneider. It probably wasn't the best move for the organization at the time, but it was certainly fair value, but I didn't trust DOPEY David Conte not to use this pick on Curtis Lazar or some shit like that. I'm pretty sure we weren't gonna pick anybody we really wanted with this pick.
2014: I'm not even gonna touch this draft, but it was probably enough to justify an entire house cleaning of the scouting and drafting department.
I'm sure I still missed several BLUNDERS while going over this, but to that I say thank god I was able to forget such curses.
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I won't say what town he lives in but it's in Essex County. So I would imagine the park if one of the reserves in the area.
Also, love how he wears his Hat Hat all the time. Even when they were just back in Belarus for a few weeks he was wearing it.
Having someone actually cover this team is.... weird.... gives me the downstairs tinglies.
He will get promoted and leave us pretty soon probably.
Eggtimer
Registered User
I’m worried about not improving our defence at our forward positions. Seems like every good team has a line or at least 2/3 forwards that are good defensively . Someome we can put out there when the other team is makig a push and has momentum and can calm things down by stopping an onslaught. Hopefully we can trade Zacha and Johnson and replace them with more defensively apt forwards. I’m not saying a defensive specialist that is useless offensively but at least decent defensively . Or even players like a Motte on our 3/4 line. A guy that is good defensively, good skater , gives it his all , can win board battles . However , we just don’t have room for roster players like that when we already have Bastian , McLeod Boqvist Johnson Zacha Tatar . Just no room .
2014 was a bad draft overall, especially if you take into account that the Devils effectively didn’t have a first round pick. Of course there was no reason to pass on Point by the third round.
- May 1, 2011
- 133,273
- 62,662
Looking back on that draft it's almost like you could have fired everybody in the scouting and drafting departments, including Conte and maybe even Lou (they were done away with a year later anyway), especially combined with how little they had to show for in the decade prior to that.
Most of them were done away with everybody, but I don't really think it was based on that failure of a draft, although you could have literally fired everyone just for that draft.
Although, it would take more than a year to really consider that draft a complete failure. So pretty much everyone was already gone before they could really face any consequence or punishment of that draft.
nugg
NJ Hammerhead Bats!
Yes, the 1st rounder getting given back, but at 30 (ugh) then a bunch of us on this board that day yelling out POINT! POINT! POINT! right before Conte would pick Josh Jacobs, then mindblowingly right about when our third round pick was coming around, he was still available. then once again we cry POINT! POINT! POINT!, but Lou/Conte missed the point, literally and figuratively.
Just the worst.
I mean, it was pretty much the beginning of the end for Conte and Lou, although that was before anyone knew how good of an NHLer Point was going to be.
glenwo2
JESPER BRATWURST
Don't care about Murph.
Just give me DeBrincat and let us have a very promising Blue-Chip prospect under team control for years to come. Thanks.
Debrincat and Slaf on the Devils.
Sign me up FOR THAT.
Azathoth
Registered User
Without knowing any details as to how they are organized now, it does make you wonder if during the years prior to Haris/Blitzer buying the team they really cut corners in the scouting department due to all the rumor of money issues Vanderbeek was having.
For a guy that came across as detesting mediocrity, Lou certainly put up with from Conte an co. for a long, long time.
Our original pick in 2006 was #25. Giroux went #22 to Philly, Varlamov went #23 to Washington. I remember liking Ivan Vishnevskiy for our pick so I would have whiffed there too.
Simmonds said the only two teams he interviewed with were us and Atlanta, so he expected/hoped for the Devils/Thrashers to take him in the late rounds. LA happened to hire Mike Futa in 2006 and he was previously the GM of the OHL's Owen Sound. Futa was the guy who recruited Simmonds and convinced him to play in the OHL instead of going the NCAA route. LA didn't bother interviewing Simmonds since they already had more info about him than anybody else.
Interesting story with when LA drafted him as well. They earmarked pick #52 for him, so likely much higher than anybody else was planning on taking him. But as the pick drew closer, a prospect named Oscar Moller continued to drop. Most had expected Moller to go in the 30-40 range. LA had Simmonds ranked higher than Moller, but an impromptu discussion occurred and they debated whether they should take Moller first then grab Simmonds with pick #61.
Most of the staff figured there was no chance Moller would last another nine picks. Some dissenting voices didn't want to go against their list, but in the end they took the calculated risk and got both. Apparently LA did a similar thing in 2019 when they had picks #22 and #33. They wanted one D and one F out of the pick and thought they'd get a better duo if they chose the D (Tobias Bjornfot) at #22. One of their scouts implied that they had Arthur Kaliyev (#33) ranked higher than Bjornfot.
Getting back to Simmonds, I think he told a story about him driving (with Chris Stewart after a workout) and his agent called him early in Day 2 to tell him that he'd been drafted. Simmonds was caught off guard since he wasn't expecting to be taken already, so he had to pull over on the highway to process the news.
- Dec 20, 2018
- 22,698
- 50,681
Oh fun, if you want to look at games played:
(“Still playing” is getting NHL games last season.)
2005 draft = 791 games (the end)
2006 draft = 152 games (the end)
2007 draft = 367 games (the end)
2008 draft = 940 games (Henrique, with 768 GP, is still playing)
2009 draft = 588 games (the end)
2010 draft = 551 games (Merrill, with 471 GP, & Wedgewood, with 77 GP, are still playing)
2011 draft = 1,238 games (Larsson, with 685 GP, & Coleman, with 382 GP, are still playing)
2012 draft = 1,018 games (Matteau, with 52 GP, Severson, with 566 GP, & Kerfoot, with 360 GP are still playing)
[Note: Matteau had 1 GP in 2021-22 & got his call up because his 750k were all the Avs could afford at the time.]
2013 draft = 445 games (Santini, with 119 GP, & Wood, with 326 GP, are still playing)
[Note: Santini played no regular season NHL games in 2021-22 but did play 1 playoff game because the Blues were forced to play 10 different defensemen due to injuries.]
2014 draft: 46 games (the end)
2015 draft: 614 games (Zacha, with 386 GP, Blackwood, with 130 GP, Speers, with 5 GP, White, with 38 GP, & Seney, with 55 GP, are still playing)
[Note: Yep, Speers somehow got 2 games with the Coyotes and Seney got 2 games with the Leafs so the entire 2015 draft class played in the NHL last season.]
2016 draft: 721 games played so far (McLeod, with 162 GP, Bastian, with 120 GP, Anderson, with 58 GP, Maltsev, with 51 GP, Bratt, with 307 GP, & Davies, with 22 GP, are all still playing.)
[Note: Anderson got 3 games with the Leafs, Maltsev got 18 games with the Avalanche, and Davies got 6 games with Predators.]
2017 draft: 477 games (Hischier, with 300 GP, Boqvist, with 119 GP, Zetterlund with 14 GP, Walsh with 1 GP, & Studenic, with 41 GP)
2018 draft: 250 games (Smith, with 114 GP, Schmid, with 6 GP, & Sharangovich, with 130 GP, are still playing)
2019 draft: 180 games (Hughes, with 166 GP, Okhotiuk, with 5 GP, & Thompson, with 9 GP, are still playing)
2020 draft: 116 games (Holtz, with 9 GP, Mercer, with 82 GP, & Daws, with 25 GP, are still playing)
Note: I just did this for fun & not debating what ever this debate is about. (Not even sure really.)
I’ve always want the team to do even better with drafting? The team under Shero slowly changed with new hirings, a few guys leavings and other aging out more slowly.
Shero ran a good draft (though the teammate fixation was weird) and the depth pick are strong. I don’t know how much more mourning over Zacha & MacLeod is necessary.
lol How the f*** can someones justification for giving up a 2OA pick and a PPG AHLer at 19/20 be “because we’re getting back a replacement level D making ~4 mil”. That is some mind numbingly bad logic
I don’t buy Zacha as a Ray pick either. That was still a Conte ran draft
JimEIV
Registered User
- Feb 19, 2003
- 67,701
- 30,526
He certainly scored goals like a top 90 forward. Top 90 in goals 4 times in 6 years with New Jersey. 2016 in was 23rd in the league in goals
2014 49th in goals
2015 136th in goals
2016 23rd in goals
2017 90th in goals
2018 70th in goals
Sure, when you make up your own categories and put in arbitrary endpoints, anything can be anything, I agree.
glenwo2
JESPER BRATWURST
Can Ryan ask this clown why he is the way he is?
Why are you asking me?
I'm just responding to Stephen Gionta (who, i wonder, if it really IS Stephen Gionta himself at this point)....
But just in case you think it's me saying this crazy s--t : The Blue-Chip Prospect I was referring to is Slaf.
I don't know where you're getting "replacement level D" from.....(unless you're talking about what Gio said, in which case I agree with your incredulousness)
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- Dec 20, 2018
- 22,698
- 50,681
Matteau has 6G 5A in 92 games. His best run production wise is actually his 9 games in 2019-20 with Columbus, he scored 2G 1A then.
His second best is 2012-13, with 1G 2A in 17 games. He scored all three points in 2012-13 while playing with Kovy.
In 2012-13 the team started with Zajac & Elias at center, Kovy & Clarkson at RW, then had tryouts for the void at LW. That was Zubrus and ?
They tried Tedenby for 10 seconds (ok, maybe 2-3 games), then Matteau got a longer look, at least a half dozen games.
After Zubrus got hurt after 9 games and the lack of top six wingers was really noticeable. (And Zubrus was 34, I’m being nice by calling him a top 6 forward.)
Deboer’s solution ended up being moving Henrique to 2C and Elias to wing while shuffling around those losers. (Ryan Carter saw time in the top 6. And Ponikarovsky. Loktionov was a thing. A 38 year old Steve Sullivan. Matt D’Agastino for some reason. We weren’t proud.)
MauDevils
Registered User
Can Ryan ask this clown why he is the way he is?
Why are you asking me?
I'm just responding to Stephen Gionta (who, i wonder, if it really IS Stephen Gionta himself at this point)....
But just in case you think it's me saying this crazy s--t : The Blue-Chip Prospect I was referring to is Slaf.
I don't know where you're getting "replacement level D" from.....(unless you're talking about what Gio said, in which case I agree with your incredulousness)
I know. I’m agreeing with you that it’s dumb
The Wumpus
bottomless pit supervisor
Going over our draft history.
It's amazing how relatively young some of our long-forgotten whiffs are. Guys like Corrente, Hoeffel, Josefson could still be on the team contributing. Even Jason Ryznar is still young enough to be an Islander.
Kirill Tulupov played a single game for ECHL Rapid City in 2016. Imagine going to a random hockey game in South Dakota a few years ago and scratching your head where you'd heard that name before.
It's amazing how relatively young some of our long-forgotten whiffs are. Guys like Corrente, Hoeffel, Josefson could still be on the team contributing. Even Jason Ryznar is still young enough to be an Islander.
Kirill Tulupov played a single game for ECHL Rapid City in 2016. Imagine going to a random hockey game in South Dakota a few years ago and scratching your head where you'd heard that name before.
Forge
Blissfully Mediocre
glenwo2
JESPER BRATWURST
New Jersey Devils
Doc & Chico Forever
Ryan's done more in the past month than our old Athletic dedicated writer (Corey?) who left for San Jose.
glenwo2
JESPER BRATWURST
Those that think he will be poached are being a bit too paranoid, imo.
TG lasted 14 years before the "poaching" happened.
I doubt the NHL is beating down Ryan's door.
He's going to be around for awhile and I couldn't be happier.
Emperoreddy
Show Me What You Got!
Jesus Ryan is putting in work. I am a fan of this guy already
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