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

[Capt Nico Poo]

Lets get that scarface dude that played the 1-3-1 system with the Lightning like 10ish years ago. Was his name Guy something?

 

[DVision44]

Lets get that scarface dude that played the 1-3-1 system with the Lightning like 10ish years ago. Was his name Guy something?

Guy Boucher

 

[Guttersniped]

Lets get that scarface dude that played the 1-3-1 system with the Lightning like 10ish years ago. Was his name Guy something?

That’s Guy Boucher. He’s not coaching, I’m surprised he hasn’t popped up as an AC somewhere.

 

[Guttersniped]

A nice moment in Pepe’s Wikipedia entry:

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And it was just Father’s Day!

Jim’s post sent me to Wikipedia where I got this but now I see our ace beat reporter had already delivered this heartwarming Father’s Day factoid on Twitter.

 

[NJDevs26]

Was gonna say maybe he’s a lurker but turns out his Tweet beat your post by a few hours lol

 

[glenwo2]

Truthfully I'll take it though. As Walt Disney once said "A dumb article about the Devils, is better then no article about the Devils", or something like that.


I think it probably played into it. And I'm fine with that. Hughes started to blossom under Ruff, and he likes him, if the reverse were true, ie Hughes struggled and didn't like him, then booting Ruff is the easiest of calls.

I'd take a NJ.com Devils article by Ryan over anyone else.

 

[Better Call Sal]

He’s better than Mark Everson. This little article haunts me to this day. Well one specific line has haunted me for over two decades. (Good lord I feel ancient.)

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SYKORA DEALT TO DUCKS FOR FRIESEN, OLEG

Good lord what a flashback and that article is full of incorrect statements. Friesen certainly was not a Holik replacement. And I can’t recall him ever being viewed as a center in his career at any point.

Bit of a shift but I hope they do honor the 2003 team this year. Would be cool to see Friesen come back, I was always bummed he flamed out so fast after that Cup year. Would love to see him and Gio back for old times sake.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

Good lord what a flashback and that article is full of incorrect statements. Friesen certainly was not a Holik replacement. And I can’t recall him ever being viewed as a center in his career at any point.

Bit of a shift but I hope they do honor the 2003 team this year. Would be cool to see Friesen come back, I was always bummed he flamed out so fast after that Cup year. Would love to see him and Gio back for old times sake.

Never seen a player who loved being a Devil more than Jeff Friesen.

 

[MauDevils]

I'm not a Ruff fan because accountability doesn't exist in his coaching strategy.

That said, the goaltending was so horrifically bad towards the end I'm not sure how you fire someone that you (Fitzgerald) directly set up to fail.

 

[TF1970]

With the references made to getting harder to play against (hard skill was it deemed?), two guys I wonder about are Mason Marchment & David Perron. By all accounts, the sentiment was Perron definitely back to STL, but thought I read recently somewhere the offer they made him was significantly lower than what he would have expected - so maybe it isn't a slam dunk?

 

[LeedsMonster]

I'm not a Ruff fan because accountability doesn't exist in his coaching strategy.

That said, the goaltending was so horrifically bad towards the end I'm not sure how you fire someone that you (Fitzgerald) directly set up to fail.

Not true. Shara, Bratter, Hughes, Tatar all got benched pulled or demoted at certain times and it certainly helped them all play better. I think Ruff has done a really good job in developing our young guys and has earned 1 more year to try to fight for a playoff spot. I'm hoping they replace Recchi with Muller or Montgomery to run the PP/ AHC and be the heir apparent

 

[JK3]

I’m in on Claude but only if he gets to do a weekly Pros vs. Joes segment against opposing teams fans.

 

[markog]

Not true. Shara, Bratter, Hughes, Tatar all got benched pulled or demoted at certain times and it certainly helped them all play better. I think Ruff has done a really good job in developing our young guys and has earned 1 more year to try to fight for a playoff spot. I'm hoping they replace Recchi with Muller or Montgomery to run the PP/ AHC and be the heir apparent

Yeah benching young guys who are still learning for stupid mistakes, while veterans who should know better he doesn't bench. He should either bench guys for mistakes regardless of experience or not.

 

[SKNJD9]

I'm not a Ruff fan because accountability doesn't exist in his coaching strategy.

That said, the goaltending was so horrifically bad towards the end I'm not sure how you fire someone that you (Fitzgerald) directly set up to fail.

Not sure how Fitzy set anyone up to fail goaltending wise... no one could of predicted the luck we've had in net between retirements and injury. You can say he didn't trade the farm to find a goalie after the injuries sure but I'd rather not overpay for a stop gap, legit starters you'd want to have past this yr weren't available

 

[Normal Devil]

That’s Guy Boucher. He’s not coaching, I’m surprised he hasn’t popped up as an AC somewhere.



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Is that Mads Mikkelsen?

 

[MachoDiablo]

This all kind of seems silly to me; we know that the crux of what's dragging the team's record down so badly the last couple of years is goaltending. Like, it's painfully obvious. Changing coaches does next to nothing to mitigate that.

I wouldn't exactly shed tears if Ruff was replaced because the Devils felt they found someone better, but the main reasons they're losing are goaltending, the fact that this core is the youngest in the league and have only been in a position to grow for two seasons now, one of which was marred pretty badly by COVID, and, oh yeah, goaltending. You've got a bunch of guys under 25 who are stuck playing games where they no doubt feel "Shit, can't make a mistake or it'll automatically end up in the back of the net", and what, Pepe would come in and fix that?

Get the net taken care of, keep building the roster, and if a better coach is available and interested then by all means try something there, but forcing a change because "muh culture" is most likely pointless, at best, potentially detrimental at worst.

 

[LeedsMonster]

Yeah benching young guys who are still learning for stupid mistakes, while veterans who should know better he doesn't bench. He should either bench guys for mistakes regardless of experience or not.

Both Bratt and Shara were benched for lack of effort, not stupid mistakes. Shara in particular was just floating around out there and after his benching looked like a completely different player. Severson had his minutes cut multiple times for making absolutely braindead plays. Zacha the same. Not really sure what or who you are referring to. McLeod maybe? Anyway, Ruffs primary focus was developing the young guys and he did an inarguable great job of that this year outside of Ty Smith imo

 

[markog]

The Subban shouldn't have played at all, he was horrible.

 

[LeedsMonster]

The Subban shouldn't have played at all, he was horrible.

True, but who would you have replaced him with?

 

[Eggtimer]

The Subban shouldn't have played at all, he was horrible.

Subban was better than Ty Smith. If anyone should have been healthy scratched more often , it was Smith.

 

[njdevil26]

Random thought but I think we all owe NJ.com a subscription. This new dude is great, providing constant content, listening and responding to readers/fans and giving us information or updates on things we actually want to know. We have been complaining about this for years and we got someone.

 

[lucifer91]

Random thought but I think we all owe NJ.com a subscription. This new dude is great, providing constant content, listening and responding to readers/fans and giving us information or updates on things we actually want to know. We have been complaining about this for years and we got someone.

I actually bought a subscription due to the dude. It doesn't hurt that I occasionally read on NJ.com and get annoyed when I can't read the full article.

 

[markog]

True, but who would you have replaced him with?

Does it matter? If they all stink they should rotate them and not reward someone just because he earn 9m. Smith should have been sent to Utica for the whole year. Don't know what happened to him, complacency or what?

 

[Billdo]

The Subban shouldn't have played at all, he was horrible.

This just isn't even close to true.

 

[njdevil26]

I actually bought a subscription due to the dude. It doesn't hurt that I occasionally read on NJ.com and get annoyed when I can't read the full article.

That's the same with everything now. News 12, Asbury Park Press, North Jersey... I usually don't click on any new stories but when I do then I see it's locked I'm like "well I guess I just won't know what happened"

Same with the Athletic. I paid a for a while but it's not worth it.

Not to sounds like a whiner... and it sucks what the internet has done to the print industry... but asking people to pay for news that we've always gotten for free in addition to rising costs on everything on the planet ... and not just recently with food and gas and consumer goods.... The median income in NJ is the same it was like 30 years ago for non rich people yet it's more and more expensive to simply wake up in the morning in this state every year regardless of what political party is in power... Just not going to do it.

I'll give this a shot for a little while but will ultimately decide it's not worth it during the season when no one on the team tells this guy anything and he gets punished for simply asking questions lol

This just isn't even close to true.

I honestly don't think Subban was that bad. His actual salary was 2 million last year because of bonuses and contract structure. If his cap hit matched his salary, people wouldn't be complaining about him as much as they are.