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

[BostonDevil]

This is actually a really good post.

I have to admit that I'm in the camp of foolish optimists who believe we are on some sort of path somewhere. I really like Fitz's approach, as he's actually made pretty good attempts to fill every need, he's jettisoned players and contracts at the deadline that really didn't hurt the team significantly, and had excellent returns, and although the scoring fwds he picked up were misses, and goaltender injuries have been terribly unlucky, he's won most every deal. We have legitimately dynamic young stars who can score.

That said - I don't have a ton of confidence in Ruff getting us to another level other than 'bubble' - I don't like the team makeup -as we're terribly easy to play against and we allow every mediocre player in the league to do what MacKinnon and McDavid and Kucherov and Stamkos do to supposedly 'elite' goaltenders - make them look silly. Unless we fix our team defensive responsibilities and not turn the puck over we aren't going anywhere with or without personel changes and goaltender upgrades.

Let's see what happens with FA, the draft, and guys like Holtz before we even start to think about next year's possibilities.

Thanks - On paper everything seems to be pointing towards a relevant NHL team. Add that to what we expect the offseaon could bring, and they really have something going. The problem is that we’ve had these expectations before and we’ve been back at the top of the draft.

Like others have said, this is a bad team until they aren’t and I’ve been fooled before.

I don’t see why this is some sort of outrageous line of thinking.

 

[JimEIV]

Ya, that always is the question when it comes to free agents.

But given need, given he is a solid player, given he plays every game. I'd pay up, at least a little.

Yeah. I think that is a real good point on his durability. I think that is sometimes an overlooked attribute but pretty important.

 

[Lou is God]

Sorry


Exactly. That was the point.

Every team in any sport have routes to either get better or worst. It's not a point worth making, it's one of those things that goes without saying.

 

[Lou is God]

Thanks - On paper everything seems to be pointing towards a relevant NHL team. Add that to what we expect the offseaon could bring, and they really have something going. The problem is that we’ve had these expectations before and we’ve been back at the top of the draft.

Like others have said, this is a bad team until they aren’t and I’ve been fooled before.

I don’t see why this is some sort of outrageous line of thinking.

Had anyone in here said getting worse is not a possibility? I think I need to take a self imposed timeout again.

 

[BostonDevil]

Every team in any sport have routes to either get better or worst. It's not a point worth making, it's one of those it goes without saying.

Yes, but there are multiple, recently accurate, reasons for this team to get worse/stay bad.

Is the suggestion that we shouldn’t discuss this possibility? We could just shut the boards down, read the box scores and move on with our lives I guess.

I like it in here with you guys

 

[Bcap88]

What if slafkovsky is the next coming of jagr ?

 

[NjDevsRR]

What if slafkovsky is the next coming of jagr ?

Then I’ll get the big booty memes ready

 

[MadDevil]

What if slafkovsky is the next coming of jagr ?

Then Montreal will look great when they take him while we take third line center Nico 2.0 Wright.



Oh sorry, thought this was the pessimist thread.

 

[MadDevil]

Then I’ll get the big booty memes ready

The real question is...can Slaf grow a mullet?

 

[Triumph]

It's extremely unlikely that the team is worse next year. It can happen, but it's just exceptionally unlikely.

 

[Davegarri]

Who would be a cheaper and better option? I am struggling to find anyone in free agency

Not sure who he's referring to on the right side, but the only RHD that are somewhat intriguing to me are Klingberg (though I've heard he's been terrible lately), Shultz, and Manson.

I like the forward market way more than the defense market this year. Lots of forwards that play many different roles that I'd be looking into. Gaudreau, Forsberg, Burakovsky, Copp, Nichushkin, Trochek, Palat, Niederreiter, Rakell, Paul, Mikheyev, and Jarnkrok are guys I'd take if the price was right.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Team will be better record wise almost solely thanks to better goaltending.

I think they have resigned themselves to not being better then a bubble team by keeping Ruff. Just feels like that's his ceiling. Someone else will have to coach this team actually into the playoffs

 

[hidek91]

Team will be better record wise almost solely thanks to better goaltending.

I think they have resigned themselves to not being better then a bubble team by keeping Ruff. Just feels like that's his ceiling. Someone else will have to coach this team actually into the playoffs

A chicken and an egg situation because why would a top tier coach join the Devils when it can potentially kill his career? Before getting a good coach, Devils need to convince him that they have roster that will be competitive, which btw. I think will happen in 1-2 years. Before that, we were forced to go with coaches who haven't had much options (Hynes, Ruff).

 

[Guadana]

2nd overall for PLD?

Sign me up.

He's not my first option (Tkachuk, DeBrincat, Pastrnak in that order are my first 3 options) but I'd rather trade the pick for PLD than use the pick.

2nd overall for negotiations with Husso?

Sign me up.

He's not my first option (Wedgewood, Holtby, Cibson in that order are my first 3 options) but I'd rather trade the pick for zamboni man-reserving goalie than use the pick.

 

[BurntToast]

I wonder if the Devils assistant coaching search is taking longer because their is a good chance one of them will be the coach 20 games into the season (after Ruff is fired).

I also understand most of the time, assistant coaches can be hired later in the offseason, but the organization had an chance to hire coaches before other jobs opened up. Hey come to NJ were you most likely get fired next year because they kept a lame duck in Ruff or you get to work with Tortz, Cassidy, DeBoer, etc..

 

[severian]

Team will be better record wise almost solely thanks to better goaltending.

I think they have resigned themselves to not being better then a bubble team by keeping Ruff. Just feels like that's his ceiling. Someone else will have to coach this team actually into the playoffs

How do you know they’re going to have better goaltending?

 

[MadDevil]

How do you know they’re going to have better goaltending?

When you're at the bottom there's really nowhere to go but up. And I don't think Fitz is just going to sit on his hands and not try to bring in a goalie. Of course as we've seen two years in a row that's no guarantee it will actually work, but hopefully this time the new goalie doesn't decide to retire or have his hip explode.

 

[Buggsy]

Can anyone give a reason why the Devils will be worse besides injuries?

The Devils had the worst goaltending in the league, lost their 1C and 1D for half of the year and had an anemic powerplay.

The Devils young core should get better at both ends of the ice as that's what happens as you age/get experience in the NHL.

Also, I can't see anyway that the Devils don't add a new goalie and a top6/9 forward at the minimum.

 

[JimEIV]

Can anyone give a reason why the Devils will be worse besides injuries?

The Devils had the worst goaltending in the league, lost their 1C and 1D for half of the year and had an anemic powerplay.

The Devils young core should get better at both ends of the ice as that's what happens as you age/get experience in the NHL.

Also, I can't see anyway that the Devils don't add a new goalie and a top6/9 forward at the minimum.

The devil's had the worst goaltending in the league and and Defense has gotten worse without Subban and no replacement...

we are heading into the season with two top 4 defenders heading into UFA....are we going to let them get to UFA or are we going to move them in-season? In the case of Severson there is literally nothing in the organization to backfill,. there is nothing in the organization to backfill Subban, let alone Severson. The entire defense can literally be decimated by the deadline leaving us with only Seigenthaler and Hamilton as real NHL defenders if something significant isn't done this off season.

None of that speaks to the lack of size and of heavy players upfront that is becoming more and more of issue each year.

We have Bratt, Hughes, Sharangovich... even you want to throw in Nico who has never scored more than 21 goals, I not sure there is an adequate level of primary goal scorers up front...

Jack scored 26 in 49 games shooting at 15.8% and around 3.3 shots per game ...I don't think it is at all realistic to expect Jack to sustain a 15.8 shot%....if he maintains his shot rate and comes down to his career shooting percentage of 10.2 he's a 27 goal scorer.... assuming he plays 82 games which as of right now is hurdle.

Not nearly enough primary scoring possibility from the top 6.

If Mercer and Sharangovich takes steps in the goal department that would be helpful but it's really almost a necessity.

The major concern overall is there is not a dependable goal scorer here. If it works it needs to be mostly by committee.

That doesn't even address the secondary goal scoring which is pretty basically non-existent.

With massive jumps in offensive production from key players last year we still only managed to be 19th in the league in offense...a bottom 1/3 offense and the goaltending and the defense issues we have this team can easily be worse. As it is a lot has to go right just to be a serviceable team.

There is still an off-season ahead of us and a lot can still happen...thing is, stuff HAS TO happen just to keep up our heads above water.

 

[HenriquesJawLine]

Knock it off with the passive aggressive attacks.

Nico talk is off limits for right now because it has run its course. Talk about the thousand other topics related to this team for a while.

How about allowing separate threads then instead of this monstrosity, the easiest solution in the history of solutions

 

[Lou is God]

We were 19th in the league in goals scored this year, not even close to last, the Rangers with all their elite talent scored just 6 more goals than us, but we got some in here who want to sell false narratives about our offense.

 

[Triumph]

We were 19th in the league in goals scored this year, not even close to last, the Rangers with all their elite talent scored just 6 more goals than us, but we got some in here who want to sell false narratives about our offense.

Haven't you heard? Everything that's bad will stay bad. Anything that's good will get worse. I know this is how message boards work - I mentioned it recently elsewhere, but message boards were not different in this respect 20 years ago even with the Devils on top.

But hey, some people enjoy predicting gloom and doom. It's funny when those same people were touting players who never came close to getting a sniff of the NHL. Just invalidates both positions as being false.

 

[JimEIV]

We were 19th in the league in goals scored this year, not even close to last, the Rangers with all their elite talent scored just 6 more goals than us, but we got some in here who want to sell false narratives about our offense.

Rangers scored 6 more goals but they have much more dependable goal scoring than we do....we have players that could score 15 and may score 30...that's pretty much unknown

Zibanejad has pretty much been a lock for 25+ goals over the past 4 years, so has Krieder and so has Panarin. 2 of those guys are former 40+ goal scorers and the other a two time 90+ point player... that's dependable top 6 scoring
...you can almost bank on getting 80+ goals from those 3 players next year without even a thought. They actually had 103 goals combined this season for those three players.

We need need our top players to achieve new highs to even come close to equalling that type of production...that did last year but it's not at all realistic to expect 3 or 4 guys to continue to reach new highs years after year and all of them to stay healthy long enough to achieve it....it precarious at best.

You are living in fairytale land if you believe that we have anything remotely similar to that.

 

[Lou is God]

Rangers scored 6 more goals but they have much more dependable goal scoring than we do....we have players that could score 15 and may score 30...that's pretty much unknown

Zibanejad has pretty much been a lock for 25+ goals over the past 4 years, so has Krieder and so has Panarin. 2 of those guys are former 40+ goal scorers and the other a two time 90+ point player... that's dependable top 6 scoring
...you can almost bank on getting 80+ goals from those 3 players next year without even a thought.

We need need our top players to achieve new highs to even come close to equalling that type of production...that did last year but it's not at all realistic to expect 3 or 4 guys to continue to reach new highs years after year and all of them to stay healthy long enough to achieve it....it precarious at best.

You are living in fairytale land if you believe that we have anything remotely similar to that.

Show me where I said we have anything remotely similar to them, I'm simply refuting your bullshit narrative that this team is offensively challenged.

And the three Rangers players you mentioned (Mika, Krieder, Bread) are of the avg age of 30, other words they're in their prime. On top of that Mika didn't break the 25 goal mark until he was 24 years old, Kreider didn't break 25 until he was 25, Bread wasn't even in the league until he was 24, once again you're about selling false narratives with zero perspective, like comparing players in their prime to ones years away from theirs.

 

[Triumph]

Rangers scored 6 more goals but they have much more dependable goal scoring than we do....we have players that could score 15 and may score 30...that's pretty much unknown

Zibanejad has pretty much been a lock for 25+ goals over the past 4 years, so has Krieder and so has Panarin. 2 of those guys are former 40+ goal scorers and the other a two time 90+ point player... that's dependable top 6 scoring
...you can almost bank on getting 80+ goals from those 3 players next year without even a thought. They actually had 103 goals combined this season for those three players.

We need need our top players to achieve new highs to even come close to equalling that type of production...that did last year but it's not at all realistic to expect 3 or 4 guys to continue to reach new highs years after year and all of them to stay healthy long enough to achieve it....it precarious at best.

You are living in fairytale land if you believe that we have anything remotely similar to that.

All three players are nearing the age when scoring typically begins to dry up - Panarin in particular looks like he's really lost a lot 5v5. I'd rather have Hughes, Bratt, and Hischier, but that's me - these guys are reaching the age where they begin to learn how to play on the power play. And yeah, the Devils need a goal scorer, they're going to get one.