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

[Hisch13r]

Average NHL goaltending this season likely leaves us out of the playoffs still because the conference was insane, but we'd be on the bubble with it.

We'd still be pretty far out even if it was a regular year. Shayna said last night it cost us 11 wins. Average goaltending gets us to 85 pts then. That'd still not be close in a normal year which would be like 97ish pts. So around 6 wins off. An improved PP, a healthy Dougie, and a healthy Jack likely gets you right in that range. The goaltending is obviously a very tricky thing and I don't know if they get to average but it's next to impossible for it to continue to be this bad.

 

[Guttersniped]

It better not be or Fitz can join Ruff on the golf course with permanent leave. I do think they almost can’t help but improve from the worst season in 35 years of franchise history but it’s certainly not going to be any kind of meaningful improvement if they roll into next season with Ruff or an even less experienced coach who also won’t be allowed to pick his staff, and if the goaltending is once again short term vet plus an unhappy Blackwood (which quite frankly is the most likely scenario given the lack of options out there, hence why Fitz needs to be creative).

Get a real coach (and let him pick his staff), overhaul the goaltending then maybe I’ll buy 85 points with minimal change aside from that but if it’s just gonna be another year of waiting for Blackwood to stay healthy with a buffoon coaching staff playing pond hockey to juice the kids’ numbers and try to entertain the fans then we’ll be out of it by Christmas again.

How was Ruff not a real coach? I’m ready to move on have issues with his systems on the defensive end but, this is a bit much. Recchi is a big weak link obviously. I don’t see how we keep them.

It wasn’t “Pond Hockey” that particularly did us in the early months, we weren’t shooting well 5v5 but we weren’t giving that much either in first two months. (That’s with G/60 & xG/60 5v5.) Our special teams had a rough start and we just sort of sank.

The uptick in scoring 5v5 and on the PP then happened when Jack came back and Nico’s scoring curse later lifted.

That was also at time when the goalies got genuinely awful, (late stage Blackwood, Schmid, Gillies), since Daws was injured. So we bled goals.

The team played better and worse at times during the year, that happens to every team. That’s why how we did in these last games have zero importance to me (other than individual performances and it’s nice to win at home).

This team is perfectly capable of playing solid 5v5 hockey, even with Ruff. I assume he’s a goner though.

We’re likely to lose guys who, despite claimed to the contrary, are useful (Subban, Zacha) but I assume we’re getting additions to both internal & external.

 

[Eggtimer]

I just have a weird feeling that Fitz makes some massive moves in the off-season.
I think he feels his seat getting a little hot and pulls of some big changes.
Big lIke (just examples) trading for a goalie like Hellebuyck .
Trading for or signing a big name winger like Tkachuk Forsberg
Cleaning house and moving anyone that is not a core piece or part of the plans moving forward (Zacha Johnson Smith Tatar )
Adding multiple guys to better compliment the core, Nischuchkin Marchment Neiderrieder types.
Adds a RHD like Lybushkin .

 

[RangerDoggo]

I think it's funny someone can claim it's not just the goalies and complain about the record when in reality it's just the goaltending that keeps the record as shitty as it is. Simply average goaltending and ignoring all the other intangible mental effects it could have and this the 9th seed.

Goaltending does not exist in a vacuum. The awful transition game we play and the vulnerability to high-danger chances on the counterattack contribute to those numbers.

The culture problem, by the way, is that Fitzgerald is too wedded to an old Pens boy club to make meaningful and necessary coaching changes. Yzerman, being a competent GM who will make tough decisions, has already let go of three coaches. Where’s that urgency here?

 

[Triumph]

Goaltending does not exist in a vacuum. The awful transition game we play and the vulnerability to high-danger chances on the counterattack contribute to those numbers.

The culture problem, by the way, is that Fitzgerald is too wedded to an old Pens boy club to make meaningful and necessary coaching changes. Yzerman, being a competent GM who will make tough decisions, has already let go of three coaches. Where’s that urgency here?

This is too funny because absolutely everybody would've assumed Yzerman would be well within his rights to fire Blashill at the end of last season, or the season before. He's been coach of the Red Wings for 6 years, the team made the playoffs in year 1, and hasn't come close since. Yzerman was hired in April 2019 and kept him on for 3 more seasons. But now he's the exemplar of Getting Stuff Done, since he fired the coach on Saturday as opposed to next Thursday or whatever.

 

[Eggtimer]

Goaltending does not exist in a vacuum. The awful transition game we play and the vulnerability to high-danger chances on the counterattack contribute to those numbers.

The culture problem, by the way, is that Fitzgerald is too wedded to an old Pens boy club to make meaningful and necessary coaching changes. Yzerman, being a competent GM who will make tough decisions, has already let go of three coaches. Where’s that urgency here?

I agree that Fitz appears to be too loyal to his coaching staff. I know he wants to have stability within the organization and build a concrete foundation of building a consistently elite team (he has said as much) but it just hasn’t worked and these are not the correct pieces to have if you want to be successful. I understand where Fitz is coming from but unfortunately, the people he has stick with , are shit at their jobs . Fire Recchi at the very very very least

 

[Guttersniped]

That’s absolutely not tangible progress. Wins and losses are tangible progress. Having better advanced stats and being younger are intangible infrastructure upgrades. They’re nice to look at and you can build off that IF you make the right moves but come on now, you don’t get to the playoffs based on HDCF going up and roster age going down.

I don’t agree at all.

You can take the points from a year like 2017-18 as a sign all day if that’s your thing.

I’ll take the signs that we actually have a good team, expected goals is the best predictor, better than actual production. (Most people examine both in context obviously when judging a team or player.) One we lost the main motor of that run it didn’t have much to do with our future at all.

We finally have the makings of a productive offense for the 1st time since forever, this team has been an offensive graveyard for a decade.

Points don’t tell you that much, except in the broadest sense. Also if we’re a bubble team next year, particularly because goaltending will be whatever, that’s bad?

I don’t understand the debate. We won’t be better? We won’t be a lot better?

I assume we’ll be better. I just want smart team building moves and I’m a bit apprehensive about who the new coach could be.

 

[Guttersniped]

This is too funny because absolutely everybody would've assumed Yzerman would be well within his rights to fire Blashill at the end of last season, or the season before. He's been coach of the Red Wings for 6 years, the team made the playoffs in year 1, and hasn't come close since. Yzerman was hired in April 2019 and kept him on for 3 more seasons. But now he's the exemplar of Getting Stuff Done, since he fired the coach on Saturday as opposed to next Thursday or whatever.

Yzerman gave Blashill a two year extension last spring.

 

[hidek91]

That’s absolutely not tangible progress. Wins and losses are tangible progress. Having better advanced stats and being younger are intangible infrastructure upgrades. They’re nice to look at and you can build off that IF you make the right moves but come on now, you don’t get to the playoffs based on HDCF going up and roster age going down.

Except if your win column improves due to the performance of 35+ years old players (and to an extent younger players but, let's say, pending UFAs) it helps the rebuild less than the growth of RFAs early in their careers.

 

[Hisch13r]

That’s absolutely not tangible progress. Wins and losses are tangible progress. Having better advanced stats and being younger are intangible infrastructure upgrades. They’re nice to look at and you can build off that IF you make the right moves but come on now, you don’t get to the playoffs based on HDCF going up and roster age going down.

Yet again ignoring any and all context for why the record is the way it is. I wonder which team is more likely to succeed in the future? An at least average skater group that is also the youngest with the young guys driving the bus that just happened to get saddled with AHL goaltending due to injuries thus tanking their record. Or the older roster that plays like shit and doesn’t have the young talent needed for a brighter future that got carried by an elite goalie. Gee I wonder which situation is better to be in…

 

[Hisch13r]

Except if your win column improves due to the performance of 35+ years old players (and to an extent younger players but, let's say, pending UFAs) it helps the rebuild less than the growth of RFAs early in their careers.

Also due to goalies carrying you vs sinking you. The 15-16 team was a 63 pt skater group that ended up with 84 pts because of Cory. This year was a 84 pt skater group that ended up with 63 pts because AHL goaltending. Yeah it’d be lovely to have prime Cory right now but I’d much rather have the better skater group that needs improvements in net over having the netminder and needing a complete skater group overhaul.

 

[NJDevs26]

I don’t agree at all.

You can take the points from a year like 2017-18 as a sign all day if that’s your thing.

I’ll take the signs that we actually have a good team, expected goals is the best predictor, better than actual production. (Most people examine both in context obviously when judging a team or player.) One we lost the main motor of that run it didn’t have much to do with our future at all.

We finally have the makings of a productive offense for the 1st time since forever, this team has been an offensive graveyard for a decade.

Points don’t tell you that much, except in the broadest sense. Also if we’re a bubble team next year, particularly because goaltending will be whatever, that’s bad?

I don’t understand the debate. We won’t be better? We won’t be a lot better?

I assume we’ll be better. I just want smart team building moves and I’m a bit apprehensive about who the new coach could be.

I’m saying you guys are conflating ‘tangible improvement’ with analytics and roster construction. If anything it doesn’t help the case they have all these great analytic numbers and had the worst W/L season in 35 years. The fact you guys just totally dismiss record as mattering at all is not a mentality I’ll ever understand. Especially a record THAT bad.

Yeah yeah I know the goaltending, part of that was their own doggone fault with the way they fubared the goalies in the first place, from mishandling the Blackwood and Bernier injuries to giving away their vet insurance (Wedge). Plus I don’t buy the whole 11 win difference, but you’d have to go through every game with a fine tooth comb to determine which games shitty goals made a difference and which ones they were just pile on goals or irrelevant in wins. I’d say maybe average goaltending would be a 15-point difference based on nothing but feel which is still a meh 78-point season, even a 20 point difference BARELY gets you to NHL .500

Would I rather have this roster than 2014-15 heading into the offseason if I were Fitz sure, but that means absolutely nothing to me as a fan at the end of another miserable season on top of a bunch of miserable seasons when 70% of the season is meaningless games and individual stats > winning in the analytics world but not where it matters. It’s time for SHOW ME, not we have the youngest team in the league and it’ll get better some day.

 

[Hisch13r]

16-17 we finished with 70 pts. 14 of them being loser pts. That’s with goaltending that was a bit below league average. .906 SV% on a league average of .910.

This year we finished with 63 pts. 9 of them being loser pts. That’s with goaltending that was well below average. .881 SV% on a league average of .902.

Two very similar records with wildly different goaltending. Idk about the rest of you but that seems more like progress being made everywhere outside of in net than a disgrace to me.

I really couldn’t give less of a shit about the record in lost seasons. The process is what matters. The process was decently good and got better. The issue is it got better at the same time the goaltending went from being passable to a complete joke.

 

[NJDevs26]

Except if your win column improves due to the performance of 35+ years old players (and to an extent younger players but, let's say, pending UFAs) it helps the rebuild less than the growth of RFAs early in their careers.

Again we’re seven years in to the rebuild(s), being younger should be a given. It’s a canard to keep comparing the roster to 2014-15…this season was more miserable for me as a fan than that one precisely because we’ve had nearly a decade of this already now! This isn’t merely the inevitable ending crash of a long run of excellence, this is still being trapped in a forest without a flashlight year after year. Or rather with a solar powered flashlight but no map.

Not to mention we all understand most of those guys in 2015 were going to have nothing to do with the team going forward, everyone wanted and expected major change after that year….here, this is the majority of the group that is supposed to lead us out of never never land! We had younger high picks contributing, it’s not like we’re still waiting on that. And still we’re fighting over excuses why the organization continues to run in place.

 

[Triumph]

I’m saying you guys are conflating ‘tangible improvement’ with analytics and roster construction. If anything it doesn’t help the case they have all these great analytic numbers and had the worst W/L season in 35 years. The fact you guys just totally dismiss record as mattering at all is not a mentality I’ll ever understand. Especially a record THAT bad.

Yeah yeah I know the goaltending, part of that was their own doggone fault with the way they fubared the goalies in the first place, from mishandling the Blackwood and Bernier injuries to giving away their vet insurance (Wedge). Plus I don’t buy the whole 11 win difference, but you’d have to go through every game with a fine tooth comb to determine which games shitty goals made a difference and which ones they were just pile on goals or irrelevant in wins. I’d say maybe average goaltending would be a 15-point difference based on nothing but feel which is still a meh 78-point season, even a 20 point difference BARELY gets you to NHL .500

Would I rather have this roster than 2014-15 heading into the offseason sure, but that means absolutely nothing to me at the end of another miserable season in top of a bunch of miserable seasons when 70% of the season is meaningless games and individual stats > winning in the analytics world but not where it matters. It’s time for SHOW ME, not we have the youngest team in the league and it’ll get better some day.

Let's just go through a thought exercise, shall we?

The Devils of 2014-15 finished with 78 points. They did not do a whole lot over the off-season - they traded for Kyle Palmieri and made a few low-level UFA signings. They were entering a rebuild of some sort. I had them as one of the 3 worst teams in the NHL. Meanwhile Palmieri ends up scoring 30 goals and the team finishes 6 points over where they finished 2014-15, despite not trying all that hard to improve. Then in the 2016 offseason, they trade Adam Larsson for Taylor Hall - surely they will be better, right? Wrong, they finish with with 70 points and end the season on a horrific 3-17-4 run. Well, now they're not very good, but they end up with the #1 overall pick, add a forward in the offseason, maybe they improve a few points, say, 75 points? 80 points? Wrong, they finish with 97 points and make the playoffs. Hischier immediately slots in as a top line center and doesn't look that out of place, Jesper Bratt comes out of nowhere, everything that goes well. But they can't keep this up, can they? There's got to be some reckoning. Let's say they finish with 85 points next season. Wrong, they finish with 72 points and pick #1 overall again.

We can keep going with this, but basically the only time I personally would've gotten the Devils finish right in a year would be in 2020-21 where they didn't try a whole lot to improve and had gotten rid of a lot of the best contributors from the previous year, and that's only after Corey Crawford retired that I might've said this.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

Season's already been over for a while, but I'm gonna go through what I found to be the positive + negative developments with the full 82 games under the belt for my own clarification going into the offseason:


Positive:

* Jack Hughes - Superstar even strength player who signed for 8 years. Major concern was his shot going into the season and it's now possibly better than average? At least looks like it won't be a major problem going forward.

* Jesper Bratt - Elite even strength winger, the season we've been waiting for 4 years from him. He earned his payday.

* Nico Hischier - Last season was a disastrous year for him, doubters have been quiet here for months now, guy's a major building block at worst.

* Dawson Mercer - Fabulous rookie season for him, played all 82 games in two roles, gaining a 2nd wind as a RW after his play stagnated at C. Only 20 years old!

* Yegor Sharangovich - Mildly disappointing season because we were hoping for more after he jumped onto the scene but he established himself as an NHL player, which was not a certainty to happen. He can play with Hughes and has skills, happy he's here.

* Jonas Siegenthaler - I was skeptical of this trade, but this guy will be a building block. Won't put up points but will do his job.

* Jesper Boqvist - He established himself after Mercer moved to RW, he's gonna get another year minimum.


Mixed:

* Dougie Hamilton - He looked great until the jaw fracture, then looked legitimately bad until the end of the year. Hopefully he returns to form next year.

* Nico Daws - Hopefully his trial by fire makes him a better goalie in the future and he can carve out an NHL career. He wasn't ready this year but showed well in spite of it.

* A bunch of guys that were ok but don't currently look like part of the core basically meeting expectations or mildly disappointing - This list includes imo Subban, Graves, Tatar, Johnsson, Mcleod, Kuokkanen, Bastian, Vesey, Geertsen, etc. Some games they drove you crazy, some games they impressed you, they didn't make it clear they are core players going forward.


Decision Point:

* Damon Severson - Another solid season from Damon Severson who is a year from UFA. Team should start negotiations and see if he is willing to sign at a number/term that is tolerable. He will be "overpaid" compared to ELC/RFA year players but he serves a key role with no one in line to replace him and having him for another 5 years would be wonderful.



Negative:

* Ty Smith - Nightmare season for him, he went from looking like a core player to someone fundamentally lacking the skills necessary to keep up with the modern NHL. He's currently the 5th LD on my depth chart going into camp next year, and I'd like him to go to Utica next season if he's not traded.

* Mackenzie Blackwood - Blackwood was in consideration for the Canadian olympic team when the season started, with that in mind go read any Bleedred post about him now and get depressed. I don't trust him, sounds like the braintrust doesn't trust him, and he might not be a Devil next year, not sure he's a Devil in two years.

* Pavel Zacha - Time's up, he's gotta go.

* Miles Wood and Jonathan Bernier - Terrible injuries, meaning they can't really be trusted next year and their long term career outlook is in doubt



Major Concerns to be addressed:

* Goaltending - I don't trust Blackwood, Bernier or Daws so players will need to be added to the roster. Problem is this offseason seems like an awful one to be shopping for goaltending with many desperate teams, not many UFAs who can be counted on for 40+ starts. Hopefully Campbell/Kuemper/Husso all don't re-sign or NJ is aggressive and trades a pick for their negotiating rights perhaps, one of those three coming to NJ is the easiest way to "solve" this problem. Other solutions are too risky (e.g. Gibson, Lehner, Binnington) or expensive (trading the 1st).

* Power play - The hope is replacing Recchi solves this but I'm not so sure, our best offensive players score goals off the rush using their skating to attack the net. PP doesn't really lend itself well to that skillset, as it's about gaining the zone, moving the puck around and finding where the PK overcommits. Need to win board battles to maintain possession for 50/50 pucks and possibly have a bigger body attack the slot and require the PK's attention, only one on the team somewhat capable is Bastian who has been an imperfect solution.

Why there's hope despite a dreadful season:

* Top two concerns seem potentially fixable - Acquire the right body, or let Blackwood get his body right to fix the goaltending. Maybe the coaching staff really is the problem? We'll see.

* Hughes, Bratt, Hischier, Mercer and L.Hughes could be a nasty (young) core to build around, and before the season started those 5 all had question marks, now they are fading away.

​

 

[McDuffz88]

I think it's funny someone can claim it's not just the goalies and complain about the record when in reality it's just the goaltending that keeps the record as shitty as it is. Simply average goaltending and ignoring all the other intangible mental effects it could have and this the 9th seed.

While goaltending is our biggest problem right now we got alot of other issues if we want to be a good team. Getting a goalie doesn't solve the fact we have 0 team structure. We can't clear a zone to save our lives & our players have complete mental breakdowns in our own zone when the competition starts trying. We are good at one thing & thats scoring off the rush. Thats all well & good until a coach decides to neutralize our only strength then we are rendered completely useless. Alot of this has to do with coaching but it also falls upon the depth players. We can't go into next season being a one trick pony. I remember when we played boston on march 31 & before the game their coach even said we only got one good thing going for us & its the rush so he prepared his team to shut us down. Now look at the result of that game, we got dominated by
8-1. Even if we had a great goalie any smart coach will see our weakness & expose it. Getting a good goalie just isn't enough right now & I will not use the goalie as an excuse for why we suck. We have 0 team identity & if by miraculous chance we made it to the playoffs we would be swept fairly easily. While Hughes, Bratt, Nico etc have stepped up their game it wouldn't shock me that implementing a different playstyle will have them scoring less points. Right now we are strictly offence. Impliment a system where the team has to play more responsible & we could see less points from some of our players. Its a real possibility.

 

[MachoDiablo]

I completely get that going on ten years of losing (2018 aside) absolutely sucks, but yeah, it's really missing the forest for the trees to point to seasons like 2014-2015 and use that as a way to argue that things will continue being bad. The personnel are completely different, the style of play is completely different, the talent available in the farm system is completely different, etc.

When the new owners came in this team had almost nothing in terms of resources; it was an aging roster with next to nothing on the farm. If new management made a mistake, it was in deciding they could, again, "retool" on the fly: the mission they gave Shero seemed to be to build around Cory, who admittedly was playing out of his mind at that point, and find ways to bring in productive players while not handing out super lengthy contracts or trading away first rounders. To Shero's credit he made some solid deals in his tenure, also had some good draft picks, but when it came to the main roster it was all building a castle on a foundation of sand. They managed a playoff appearance one year on the back of Hall's MVP season, but otherwise had nothing to show for this approach.

If they were being realistic about the state of the franchise when they purchased it, they should've just bitten the bullet then and there and traded Cory for whatever it would net them, draft smart, develop smart, go full youth movement on day one. They didn't do that, and it ended up burning them very badly.

It took until Hall was being traded for this to finally become the reality. They finally wisened up about not rushing first rounders to the NHL in their first year, which tells me they realized they had to invest more into player development, which is a very good course correction that should've happened years earlier, plus they racked up picks and prospects and seemed to have a plan in terms of what they want the team to be structured like (fast, aggressive top six, strong/physical defense). It juts sucks that it took years for it to finally happened; had they committed to tearing everything down and building back up from day one, we'd likely be out of the woods by this point and in the midst of a significantly better run, I'd wager. Better late than never, sure...but I get the frustration that we're still sitting here waiting.

But yeah, end of the day, this was year two of the actual rebuild. What came before was us trying to have our cake and eat it, too, and it was never going to work out long term.

 

[Its Always Sundstrom]

Just saw Jesper Bratt looking through LinkedIn at Starbucks.

I said,”Jesper, seriously, how are your Excel skills?”

 

[Guttersniped]

I’m saying you guys are conflating ‘tangible improvement’ with analytics and roster construction. If anything it doesn’t help the case they have all these great analytic numbers and had the worst W/L season in 35 years. The fact you guys just totally dismiss record as mattering at all is not a mentality I’ll ever understand. Especially a record THAT bad.

Yeah yeah I know the goaltending, part of that was their own doggone fault with the way they fubared the goalies in the first place, from mishandling the Blackwood and Bernier injuries to giving away their vet insurance (Wedge). Plus I don’t buy the whole 11 win difference, but you’d have to go through every game with a fine tooth comb to determine which games shitty goals made a difference and which ones they were just pile on goals or irrelevant in wins. I’d say maybe average goaltending would be a 15-point difference based on nothing but feel which is still a meh 78-point season, even a 20 point difference BARELY gets you to NHL .500

Would I rather have this roster than 2014-15 heading into the offseason if I were Fitz sure, but that means absolutely nothing to me as a fan at the end of another miserable season on top of a bunch of miserable seasons when 70% of the season is meaningless games and individual stats > winning in the analytics world but not where it matters. It’s time for SHOW ME, not we have the youngest team in the league and it’ll get better some day.

I don’t care because it happened already so I’m done caring about it? It’s something to learn from, and we learn things about the players and coaches, rather than something to cry over. Nothing can be done about it. To me, it sucks when it happens, it’s a bummer we aren’t in the playoffs, but I don’t care that much about the specific record now. (The ending home losing streak, after doing pretty well there, is probably the only this that lingers as annoying.)

I move on quickly and I’m interested in team construction, drafting and player development and believe it’s integral to becoming a winning club.

I also never thought in terms of “winning the off-season”, I don’t even quite understand what that phrase means, so that’s not been a problem for me. I’ve been disappointed by seasons but I never go in with huge expectations (I’m realist but can hopeful about players).

I personally found the 2019-20 season the yuckiest because of all the short term moves we made with our own future draft assets, built around keeping a future UFA who was obviously not staying. Schneider broke in the opening game and then the team’s spirit broke (and no one could hit the broad side of a barn for several months). Everyone got deservedly fired in that mess.

This team under Shero had no tangible future that I saw, I simply did not see a future defensive core at all. I don’t usually put eggs in a prospect basket but Luke Hughes is a defensive blue chip prospect. Siegenthaler gives me hope as 2nd pair guy and I’m not particularly worried about Hamilton, I assume we’ll see the same guy we say at the start of season. This draft could help there too. Building a defense is hard, Shero didn’t much try and he traded away assets that could have been used to do it.

Things can happen fast. Zito has been a magician in Florida. he’s given a master class on roster building while dealing with bad contracts and little cap flexibility.

Florida also has at it’s heart a matured core of stars they drafted themselves with top picks that drive the team. And a team (except in very rare cases) can’t trade for those. So, yes, I’m pretty damn happy that we seem to be putting a core like that together, because no one will give us that.

 

[NJDevs26]

Season's already been over for a while, but I'm gonna go through what I found to be the positive + negative developments with the full 82 games under the belt for my own clarification going into the offseason:


Positive:

* Jack Hughes - Superstar even strength player who signed for 8 years. Major concern was his shot going into the season and it's now possibly better than average? At least looks like it won't be a major problem going forward.

* Jesper Bratt - Elite even strength winger, the season we've been waiting for 4 years from him. He earned his payday.

* Nico Hischier - Last season was a disastrous year for him, doubters have been quiet here for months now, guy's a major building block at worst.

* Dawson Mercer - Fabulous rookie season for him, played all 82 games in two roles, gaining a 2nd wind as a RW after his play stagnated at C. Only 20 years old!

* Yegor Sharangovich - Mildly disappointing season because we were hoping for more after he jumped onto the scene but he established himself as an NHL player, which was not a certainty to happen. He can play with Hughes and has skills, happy he's here.

* Jonas Siegenthaler - I was skeptical of this trade, but this guy will be a building block. Won't put up points but will do his job.


Mixed:

* Dougie Hamilton - He looked great until the jaw fracture, then looked legitimately bad until the end of the year. Hopefully he returns to form next year.

* Nico Daws - Hopefully his trial by fire makes him a better goalie in the future and he can carve out an NHL career. He wasn't ready this year but showed well in spite of it.

* A bunch of guys that were ok but don't currently look like part of the core basically meeting expectations or mildly disappointing - This list includes imo Subban, Graves, Tatar, Johnsson, Mcleod, Kuokkanen, Bastian, Vesey, Geertsen, etc. Some games they drove you crazy, some games they impressed you, they didn't make it clear they are core players going forward.


Decision Point:

* Damon Severson - Another solid season from Damon Severson who is a year from UFA. Team should start negotiations and see if he is willing to sign at a number/term that is tolerable. He will be "overpaid" compared to ELC/RFA year players but he serves a key role with no one in line to replace him and having him for another 5 years would be wonderful.



Negative:

* Ty Smith - Nightmare season for him, he went from looking like a core player to someone fundamentally lacking the skills necessary to keep up with the modern NHL. He's currently the 5th LD on my depth chart going into camp next year, and I'd like him to go to Utica next season if he's not traded.

* Mackenzie Blackwood - Blackwood was in consideration for the Canadian olympic team when the season started, with that in mind go read any Bleedred post about him now and get depressed. I don't trust him, sounds like the braintrust doesn't trust him, and he might not be a Devil next year, not sure he's a Devil in two years.

* Miles Wood and Jonathan Bernier - Terrible injuries, meaning they can't really be trusted next year and their long term career outlook is in doubt



Major Concerns to be addressed:

* Goaltending - I don't trust Blackwood, Bernier or Daws so players will need to be added to the roster. Problem is this offseason seems like an awful one to be shopping for goaltending with many desperate teams, not many UFAs who can be counted on for 40+ starts. Hopefully Campbell/Kuemper/Husso all don't re-sign or NJ is aggressive and trades a pick for their negotiating rights perhaps, one of those three coming to NJ is the easiest way to "solve" this problem. Other solutions are too risky (e.g. Gibson, Lehner, Bennington) or expensive (trading the 1st).

* Power play - The hope is replacing Recchi solves this but I'm not so sure, our best offensive players score goals off the rush using their skating to attack the net. PP doesn't really lend itself well to that skillset, as it's about gaining the zone, moving the puck around and finding where the PK overcommits. Need to win board battles to maintain possession for 50/50 pucks and possibly have a bigger body attack the slot and require the PK's attention, only one on the team somewhat capable is Bastian who has been an imperfect solution.

Why there's hope despite a dreadful season:

* Top two concerns seem potentially fixable - Acquire the right body, or let Blackwood get his body right to fix the goaltending. Maybe the coaching staff really is the problem? We'll see.

* Hughes, Bratt, Hischier, Mercer and L.Hughes could be a nasty (young) core to build around, and before the season started those 5 all had question marks, now they are fading away.

​

While I might have minor quibbles (Shara started out disappointing but the last 40 or so games really solidified his spot in the top six) overall I think this is a good, fair write up that I generally agree with.

 

[NjdevilfanJim]

Just don't want them to reach on the goaltending just to reach we need a lot more...We need a heavier play to our game to make us more difficult to play against that will help any goalie we start... Kuemper is good but injury prone no thanks Campbell is what 30 he'll want big money and term....Don't have the answer in net but the team as a whole has to be better not just the goaltending and I'm not a total Ruff hater but as I have said before if Fitz believes a slow start next year will cost Ruff his job move on now....I think Tortz would be good but he has his pros and cons like everyone else...Big offseason for Fitz....I hope he does it right with the mindset of we want to contend for the cup multiple years not be a bubble team or a one and done either...That might require us as fans to stay patient as our part..Be in the mix year in year out we deserve it....

 

[NJDevs26]

I completely get that going on ten years of losing (2018 aside) absolutely sucks, but yeah, it's really missing the forest for the trees to point to seasons like 2014-2015 and use that as a way to argue that things will continue being bad. The personnel are completely different, the style of play is completely different, the talent available in the farm system is completely different, etc.

When the new owners came in this team had almost nothing in terms of resources; it was an aging roster with next to nothing on the farm. If new management made a mistake, it was in deciding they could, again, "retool" on the fly: the mission they gave Shero seemed to be to build around Cory, who admittedly was playing out of his mind at that point, and find ways to bring in productive players while not handing out super lengthy contracts or trading away first rounders. To Shero's credit he made some solid deals in his tenure, also had some good draft picks, but when it came to the main roster it was all building a castle on a foundation of sand. They managed a playoff appearance one year on the back of Hall's MVP season, but otherwise had nothing to show for this approach.

If they were being realistic about the state of the franchise when they purchased it, they should've just bitten the bullet then and there and traded Cory for whatever it would net them, draft smart, develop smart, go full youth movement on day one. They didn't do that, and it ended up burning them very badly.

It took until Hall was being traded for this to finally become the reality. They finally wisened up about not rushing first rounders to the NHL in their first year, which tells me they realized they had to invest more into player development, which is a very good course correction that should've happened years earlier, plus they racked up picks and prospects and seemed to have a plan in terms of what they want the team to be structured like (fast, aggressive top six, strong/physical defense). It juts sucks that it took years for it to finally happened; had they committed to tearing everything down and building back up from day one, we'd likely be out of the woods by this point and in the midst of a significantly better run, I'd wager. Better late than never, sure...but I get the frustration that we're still sitting here waiting.

But yeah, end of the day, this was year two of the actual rebuild. What came before was us trying to have our cake and eat it, too, and it was never going to work out long term.

If you want to describe the Shero era as a faux rebuild and the Fitz one as a real rebuild I might agree with that. I do think the first year was a full rebuild other than trading for Palms, which was maybe Shero’s second best move anyway. When Hall fell in his lap though, then I think the rebuild became more of a let’s try to have our cake and eat it too mentality, that’s when we started making more MarJo, Mueller type moves to speed things up. And like you said it’s tough to try to do two things at once, you basically need everything to go right for it to work and enough for a sustainable winner.

You’re right they rushed prospects like Zacha from day one but part of that (a la Daws this year) was just the fact they almost literally had nobody else to play those first couple years. I’m not sure how much they could have gotten even for peak Cory with his deal, we’ll never know unfortunately.

 

[RangerDoggo]

While goaltending is our biggest problem right now we got alot of other issues if we want to be a good team. Getting a goalie doesn't solve the fact we have 0 team structure. We can't clear a zone to save our lives & our players have complete mental breakdowns in our own zone when the competition starts trying. We are good at one thing & thats scoring off the rush. Thats all well & good until a coach decides to neutralize our only strength then we are rendered completely useless. Alot of this has to do with coaching but it also falls upon the depth players. We can't go into next season being a one trick pony. I remember when we played boston on march 31 & before the game their coach even said we only got one good thing going for us & its the rush so he prepared his team to shut us down. Now look at the result of that game, we got dominated by
8-1. Even if we had a great goalie any smart coach will see our weakness & expose it. Getting a good goalie just isn't enough right now & I will not use the goalie as an excuse for why we suck. We have 0 team identity & if by miraculous chance we made it to the playoffs we would be swept fairly easily. While Hughes, Bratt, Nico etc have stepped up their game it wouldn't shock me that implementing a different playstyle will have them scoring less points. Right now we are strictly offence. Impliment a system where the team has to play more responsible & we could see less points from some of our players. Its a real possibility.

Seriously, people, watch how we play and tell me that it’s entirely on goaltending. The fact of the matter is that we do not have a good system that gets us wins. Prime Brodeur wouldn’t save us.

Yzerman stood by Blaishill because they had no expectations for years. He knows they are ready to take the next step and fired his coaches accordingly. We aren’t seeing that here. If Fitzgerald truly believed that we need a coaching shakeup, he’d have done something already. That’s the culture problem I’m talking about.

 

[MadDevil]

I don't think people are saying it's entirely on goaltending. It's just the biggest and most obvious problem and if it doesn't get fixed it's not really going to matter if we fix the other issues. A better coach or system or being "harder to play against" can only do so much if you still can't get a save.