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

[Triumph]

Did you really just link to single goal highlight?

Where is my Eric Rasmussen toe drag between his own legs on a crossover spectacular goal link...I got point to make

If you can't see the difference between one stick-handling move and what Nico did there, you're even worse at watching hockey than I thought. Eric Rasmussen and his ilk have no chance of pulling off what Nico did here. And I know what you're gonna say, Tedenby. Tedenby had the shiftiness and stick handling ability but had no awareness, he could only do stuff like this.

Nico can't do elite-level stuff, that's a good one. Good memory for Devils hockey from 15 years ago, though.

 

[MadDevil]

No one gave a value...what is Nico's value? No Chicago fan came running in saying shit ya I would give up DeBrincat for Nico....No Calgary fan came running in saying I would give up Tkachuk for Nico.

I wasn't looking for any sort of agreement...I was looking for what someone would give up for him.

 

[JimEIV]

If you can't see the difference between one stick-handling move and what Nico did there, you're even worse at watching hockey than I thought. Eric Rasmussen and his ilk have no chance of pulling off what Nico did here. And I know what you're gonna say, Tedenby. Tedenby had the shiftiness and stick handling ability but had no awareness, he could only do stuff like this.

Nico can't do elite-level stuff, that's a good one. Good memory for Devils hockey from 15 years ago, though.

This is seriously ridiculous. A single instance of anything means absolutely nothing.

It's like what I teach my archery students when they celebrate a perfect shot...who cares you have to make 128 shots in a field tournament. It's about frequency and consistency.


I usually say "if a tournament was 1 shot you'd be all set"

 

[Triumph]

This is seriously ridiculous. A single instance of anything means absolutely nothing.

It's like what I teach my archery students when they celebrate a perfect shot...who cares you have to make 128 shots in a field tournament. It's about frequency and consistency.


I usually say "if a tournament was 1 shot you'd be all set"

It's not a single instance, it's a use of time and space and his teammates and knowing where people are on the ice and how to manipulate that. NHL players are incredible athletes, Marek Malik played 10 seasons in the NHL but the only thing anyone remembers about him is the shootout move he made - this is different, it's what separates top players from the rest, the ability to make plays like this.

 

[JimEIV]

It's not a single instance, it's a use of time and space and his teammates and knowing where people are on the ice and how to manipulate that. NHL players are incredible athletes, Marek Malik played 10 seasons in the NHL but the only thing anyone remembers about him is the shootout move he made - this is different, it's what separates top players from the rest, the ability to make plays like this.

If Nico was doing these things with any sort of frequency he would have produced far more than he has over the last 5 years.

78 goals and 128 assist over 300 games does not indicate a "top player" that has "separated himself from rest". It's not terrible, it's even good but it's nothing special.

This is a 21 goal, 35 assist player over 5 years...he started off with 52 points and just had a break out 60 point season 5 years later Everything in between has basically been the exactly same. I'm not seeing where the high level play that separates him from others manifests itself?

 

[McDuffz88]

Jim acting shocked that someone on the trade boards offered multiple first rounders & top prospects for Nico......

 

[JimEIV]

Jim acting shocked that someone on the trade boards offered multiple first rounders & top prospects for Nico......

Yeah I think that dude is high.... I'd take that shit and run laughing my ass off...from a value perspective.

From a winning perspective that does nothing for us now. I would only trade Nico for impact player.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Nico was on a 100 pt pace for a 25 game stretch this season. Idgaf what his numbers were before this season. If he can produce at a ppg and deliver stellar two way play going forward then he is an elite player.

He is OBVIOUSLY a tremendous player, he just needs to stay healthy. Same with Hughes. Their point totals early in their career on shit teams means nothing.


What do you have to be smoking to bring up past numbers when many players obviously get better as time goes on!? Going with this logic means guys liks MacKinnon, Thornton, Nichuskin, Schenn, Buchnevich, etc aren’t good players and are not worth a good package because their numbers early in their careers were underwhelming…

This shit is meaningless and tiresome.

Hint hint, if they were drafted by Lous crew he wouldn’t be harping on this week after week, year after year. Thats the sad part about all of this.

 

[JimEIV]

Nico was on a 100 pt pace for a 25 game stretch this season.

Mercer was on 65 point pace after the first 14 games of his career.... maybe after 5 years he too can be on 100 point pace after 25 games...

 

[Guttersniped]

This is funny because Lou signed Zajac to an 8 year contract. But yes, you're right, not a core piece, he was just locking the guy up for 8 years because he thought he was one of his less important players.

That said, this is pure fatuousness once again.

Zajac through D+5 - 162 games, 76 points, 16:25 per game
Nico through D+5 - 300 games, 206 points, 17:55 per game

Hmm which of these players do I think is better, I don't know.



lol. Mercer is the least wait and see player. He's not likely to be a star, but he's just going to be a real solid player. He thinks the game at a high level and has the ability to execute. A wait and see. Yeah. Let's see how this guy turns out.

Mercer is so “wait and see” that we’re supposed to trade Nico ASAP (for “a goal scorer”) and make Mercer our 2C. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[JimEIV]

Mercer is so “wait and see” that we’re supposed to trade Nico ASAP (for “a goal scorer”) and make Mercer our 2C. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mercer is wait and see as far as what level he can attain.

After Nico played 82 games and scored 52 points in his rookie season, did anyone think he wouldn't play a full season or get much past 52 points 5 years later? I didn't.

If Mercer stagnates for 5 years like Nico did that'll suck. We'll see what happens.

 

[Guttersniped]

That's really not true. They were only together for about 21 games in the first half. Mercer scored as much in the 2nd half as the first.

His last 10 games were a blemish for sure. He scored a goal in his last game but went 10 games without a point before that.

But in half's, he scored 22 points in his first 41 games. 9 goals and 13 assist

20 points in last 41 games. 8 goals and 12 assist.

Would've been nice if he ended the season a little stronger but a 42 point season season on a 27 win team in his first isn't bad at all

Mercer’s second wind came when he played on Jack’s line and he stopped scoring when Jack got injured.

 

[Guttersniped]

Mercer is wait and see as what level he can attain.

After Nico played 82 games and scored 52 points in his rookie season, did anyone think he wouldn't play a full season or get much past 52 points 5 years later?

If Mercer stagnates for 5 years like Nico did that'll suck.

That still doesn’t explain how a“wait and see” player can be a 2C when we know how strict you are about not projecting from only a successful part of a season.

Oh wait, I forgot that Mercer’s season gets a nuanced breakdown that you refuse to accept about any player you have a bug up your ass about.

Also that’s not what happened with Nico. His second season was better than his first.

His third season had an admittedly disappointing start, he played better until he injured his knee.

He played 21 games in his fourth season.

If you didn’t see improvement in his last season I can’t help you there.

No one responded on the trade board much because no one trades young center locked up long term for wingers. You wanted to ship out the most coveted asset in hockey, and gamer and leader who committed to this team longterm, for a unsigned RFA winger with a 9m Qualifying Offer. It’s a bad idea and will not happen.

 

[Guttersniped]

Mercer putting up significantly better numbers playing with elite players isn’t exactly surprising. I’m not ready to write the kid off because he couldn’t singlehandedly drive play as a rookie on a crap team.


We’ve have had a ton of epic off seasons of late. I’ll gladly trade that for an epic regular season.

No one is writing Mercer off at all, even a little, but when someone suggests that we trade Nico and make Mercer our 2C, they’re arguing he can already carry a line.

Or we keep our two top centers and let Mercer develop too.

 

[JimEIV]

That still doesn’t explain how a“wait and see” player can be a 2C when we know how strict you are about not projecting from only a successful part of a season.

Oh wait, I forgot that Mercer’s season gets a nuanced breakdown that you refuse to accept about any player you have a bug up your ass about.

Also that’s not what happened with Nico. His second season was better than his first.

His third season had an admittedly disappointing start, he played better until he injured his knee.

He played 21 games in his fourth season.

If you didn’t see improvement in his last season I can’t help you there.

No one responded on the trade board much because no one trades young center locked up long term for wingers. You wanted to ship out the most coveted asset in hockey, and gamer and leader who committed to this team longterm, for a unsigned RFA winger with a 9m Qualifying Offer. It’s a bad idea and will not happen.

Sure it does... his 42 point season wasn't far off from what Nico has provided most of his time here .. And most of Nico's time has been spent as the #1 center....If there is no improvement from Mercer and he's playing 16/17 a game while Jack is playing 19/20 1st line minutes...it really is a wash. I think you'll get 70-ish points out Jack next year as the #1 center and it's acceptable to have a 45-ish point 2C as a worst case scenario.

Nico will never play 19 & 1/2 minutes with a healthy Jack like he did this season. And if we need Nico to play first line minutes we are in trouble....sort of like all the years Zajac had to be the #1 center when he really was a 2/3C.

If Mercer improves slightly he's right on par with what Nico has provided for the vast majority of career.

 

[Guttersniped]

Sure it does... his 42 point season wasn't far off from what Nico has provided most of his time here .. And most of Nico's time has been spent as the #1 center....If there is no improvement from Mercer and he's playing 16/17 a game while Jack is playing 19/20 1st line minutes...it really is a wash. I think you'll get 70-ish points out Jack next year as the #1 center and it's acceptable to have a 45-ish point 2C as a worst case scenario.

Nico will never play 19 & 1/2 minutes with a healthy Jack like he did this season. And if we need Nico to play first line minutes we are in trouble....sort of like all the years Zajac had to be the #1 center when he really was a 2/3C.

If Mercer improves slightly he's right on par with what Nico has provided for the vast majority of career.

 

[Guadana]

We've been rebuilding since 2015...if you want to argue 2016 I wouldn't fight that...

That's 7 or 8 years depending on the starting point. During that time we really haven't seen a single elite level performance from anyone other than Bratt and a half season from Hughes.

But one drafted player to have surpassed 60 points in the last 7 or 8 years? None with over 26 goals?

Considering all the bullets we've had at the draft table over the last years this is just futility

Looking around the league, just about every single team in the NHL has produced a 60+ point forward or 40+ point defenseman over last 8 years via the draft. There are a couple exceptions..Ranger have done a real shitty job, Montreal too...you look at team like Philly who has missed a ton and they still have produced a 40+ point Dman in Provorov and 60+ point forward in Konecny.

Ottawa and Detroit who has been in the same boat we are 50+ points from Chabot, 30 goals and 67 points from Tkachuk...50 points as rookie Dman from Seider.

Buffalo sucks and still have great performances from Eichel 40+ from Dahlin, 68 points from Tage Thompson

Anaheim Zegras 61 points drafted 2019 only as a rookie -Troy Terry drafted 2015 67 points.

Arizona Keller and Chychrun

Dallas we've been over ... Chicago DeBrincat - Carolina Aho and Svech - NYI Barzal and Dobson - Boston MacAvoy - Calgary Matthew Tkachuk - Colorado - Markar - Vancouver Peterson and Hughes - San Jose Meier - Columbus Werenski and ....You can go on an on... regardless it's harder to find a team that hasn't had an elite level performance from a draft pick in the last 8 years...

And for team that has had many picks and as many high picks as we've had over the last years to have had 1 solid performance from Bratt this year is unacceptable.

This entire expirement has been a disaster and you've got to believe this notion of collective decision making plays a large part.

Hope Jack continues to develop, Luke continues to develop and the #2 becomes a player for the future...but in large part, the majority of the last 8 years has been a waste of time.

Nope, we don't. Shero did try to force rebuild and bring the team to the playoffs. Its a fact. Every first picks etc isn't the result of success. Its results of luck on lottery and shero's fails. Its a fact. We did trade tons of our second picks and lose their value in later trades. We didn't trade no one for the first rounds picks(here we should say thanks to Lou too). Shero did try to build the team around the Hall fast. He even didn't start the sale when he joined the team. And traded picks for Palms. He did saw pretty nice results with two 30 goals scorers and traded Hall. Every of his next step were working for sign Hall long term and push the team forward.
Fitz did start real rebuild. And after one year he ended. Last year he did right conclusions, but lack of goaltending and his mistakes with no trade for replacement bring us 2nd pick. And luck on lottery. Its a result of lack of success.
There were no real rebuild in 7-8 years. There were one two real years of rebuild and many years of fails of shero. Especially how he treated devils defensive line. It was disaster.

 

[JimEIV]

Mercer’s second wind came when he played on Jack’s line and he stopped scoring when Jack got injured.

This is kind of revisionism....Mercer was put with Jack to make sure Nico and Jack got the 1/2 center spots....the brain trust literally ripped apart the most successful and dynamic line we had seen in years in with Mercer at Center with Bratt and Johnsson....They all werer producing at an awesome rate.

It's revisionism because Mercer’s best month was the month Jack was out in October and November and he got to play 2C which really was the defacto 1C in terms of production....you make it sound like Jack made Mercer’s season

While jJack was out Dawson had 14 points in 19 playing that center role....as soon as Jack returned on November 30th the Bratt Mercer Johnsson line was ripped apart, Mercer was no longer a top 2 center and he went ice cold....with Jack in the lineup. From November 30th on Jack’s return to December 29 Dawson had 2 points in the next 12 games...2 goals.

That sound more like being jerked around going from center to wing and being moved up and down the lineup as opposed to being dependent on a single player for success

What? What's wrong with 70-ish points? Oh wait...you think Jack is going shoot at 16% next year too? You want to make a bet on that?

 

[Guadana]

Thans God, we finally did start to lodly talking about Shero problems, and how he badly worked with defense. On market and on the draft. He did have no vision.

Anyway, after Fitz did join the team, we have Graves, Siegs and Hamilton from markets and Mukh, Vilen and Hughes from the drafts. Not bad for one year. Will see what he will doing in "the end" of his second year before third season.

L

Let’s just take a little trip down memory lane here of defenseman we’ve drafted, I’ll start in 2019 and go back to 2012.

2019
Nikita Okhotiuk-too early to tell but he’s the first defenseman I’ve see here who actually hits people in ages
Danill Misyul-who knows
Vukojevic-AHL player for now

2018
Ty Smith-promising first season, absolute garbage his second season
Xavier Bernard-ECHL player

2017(we had 11 picks this draft and where I say the rebuild truly started)
Reilly Walsh-still hasn’t made an impact, probably just an AHL player
Jocktan Chainey-who
Yegor Zaitsev-who

2016
Yegor Rykov-traded and then never caught on here
Jeremy Davies-traded, career AHL’er

2015
Colton White-looked bad when he got games in the NHL

2014
Josh Jacobs-grand total of 3 NHL games
Ryan Rehill-never played a game

2013
Steve Santini-serviceable but not an NHL regular

2012
Severson-an actual NHL defenseman


You’d be hard pressed to find a worse team at drafting defenseman than us

 

[MadDevil]

Weren't we having a discussion just the other day about why more people don't join/post? Well, it's probably because of annoying bullshit arguments like this that are stirred up by the same posters all the time. A person would have to be insane to want to walk into this madhouse.

 

[Buggsy]

This is kind of revisionism....Mercer was put with Jack to make sure Nico and Jack got the 1/2 center spots....the brain trust literally ripped apart the most successful and dynamic line we had seen in years in with Mercer at Center with Bratt and Johnsson....They all werer producing at an awesome rate.

It's revisionism because Mercer’s best month was the month Jack was out in October and November and he got to play 2C which really was the defacto 1C in terms of production....you make it sound like Jack made Mercer’s season

While jJack was out Dawson had 14 points in 19 playing that center role....as soon as Jack returned on November 30th the Bratt Mercer Johnsson line was ripped apart, Mercer was no longer a top 2 center and he went ice cold....with Jack in the lineup. From November 30th on Jack’s return to December 29 Dawson had 2 points in the next 12 games...2 goals.

That sound more like being jerked around going from center to wing and being moved up and down the lineup as opposed to being dependent on a single player for success


What? What's wrong with 70-ish points? Oh wait...you think Jack is going shoot at 16% next year too? You want to make a bet on that?

You're complaining that Mercer lost his center position when the teams best offensive player came back? Mercer was moved to wing because he took over Hughes role. He never had Hischiers role.

Mercer is going to be a really good player for the Devils.

You have still made no argument as to why it would be better to trade Nico so Mercer can play 2c. You believe that his trade value is better than his on ice impact?

If Nico is average, what are you trading him for that makes the team better?

What happens if Jack or Mercer gets hurt? Boqvist as 2C? Or are we keeping Zacha around as insurance?

I agree that Mercer has better hands than Nico. However I think Nico had a better shot, is better at faceoffs, is better along the boards and is better defensively.


Also just because it's fun to watch highlights.

 

[NJDevs26]

Right...and Nico is not one of those elite level players and never has been not even shown flashes of it....but Mercer in the right circumstances has in only his first year...you don't have to jump far to the conclusion.

Mercer in his age 19-20 rookie season had 17 goals and 42 points in 82 games. Nico in his age 18-19 rookie season had 20 goals and 52 points in 82 games and had 60 points in 70 games this year. But sure, Mercer is the one who's shown signs of being 'elite'.

 

[Buggsy]

Mercer in his age 19-20 rookie season had 17 goals and 42 points in 82 games. Nico in his age 18-19 rookie season had 20 goals and 52 points in 82 games and had 60 points in 70 games this year. But sure, Mercer is the one who's shown signs of being 'elite'.

We should all be prepared for the fact that neither of them are going to be elite.

Jack is/will be elite.
Bratt is/will be elite.

Mercer and Hischier are/going to be great players that you need to win in the playoffs .

 

[NJDevs26]

Weren't we having a discussion just the other day about why more people don't join/post? Well, it's probably because of annoying bullshit arguments like this that are stirred up by the same posters all the time. A person would have to be insane to want to walk into this madhouse.

New people are joining all sorts of crap online that's worse than this board every day, hard as it is to believe.

Nothing says you guys have to indulge the same arguments all the time either. Especially when Nico (and Jack to a degree) are getting unrealistically graded on the curve of 'he has to be a top shelf #1OA AND the team has to win', otherwise trade him while everyone else who isn't a 1OA gets graded on an actual realistic to generous curve.

The team does need to start winning to shut off one of those arguments forever.

 

[Clam Jensen]

View attachment 561222

I mean his avatar is literally bait lol. I’ve been on these boards since my junior year of high school, I’m 32 now, and he hasn’t changed one bit…and people still engage