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

[RangerDoggo]

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.

But I’m saying that the system and the goaltending are more connected than anyone here is willing to admit.

I’ll give Fitz credit, he’ll look for goaltending help (and it will promptly shit the bed because we’re cursed). But it won’t mean nearly as much if they keep the coaches and their awful system.

 

[Bleedred]

Can anybody myself and @My3Sons out with what our record was in games we got .910% goaltending?

I know there's gotta be a site that will break those splits down.

It can't be bad I'm assuming, unless there was some kind of early Cory years level goal support in some of those games.

Even with as PATHETIC as Blackwood was, he was only one game below NHL 500. Same with Daws.

 

[RangerDoggo]

I’d also like to add- my idea of what I want to see next season isn’t anything radical. I’m not saying we should aim to be Cup contenders next year, or even a playoff team. I want to see a team that is in the mid- to high-80 point range. And everything doesn’t have to go our way. That’s perfectly reasonable, wouldn’t you say? But given our prior track record, cursed goaltending, and our management’s complete inability to let go of awful coaching with their terrible systems, you’d have to be some level of delusional to think we’ll even achieve something that realistic.

Show me results in the standings, then I’ll stop bitching. Fitzgerald seems very willing to accept sub-mediocrity until I see otherwise.

 

[MadDevil]

But I’m saying that the system and the goaltending are more connected than anyone here is willing to admit.

I’ll give Fitz credit, he’ll look for goaltending help (and it will promptly shit the bed because we’re cursed). But it won’t mean nearly as much if they keep the coaches and their awful system.

I'm not a fan of Ruff, and I don't think the system helps our goaltenders, but I don't think it's as atrocious as some people make it out to be either. I think it looks worse because of the goaltending. Every shot we give up, seemingly regardless of where it's coming from, is more likely to go in with these sieves in net. I also think it messes with the skaters because they have zero confidence in the guy playing the most important position on the ice. They're basically going into games with one hand tied behind their back with this quality of goaltending.

 

[RangerDoggo]

I'm not a fan of Ruff, and I don't think the system helps our goaltenders, but I don't think it's as atrocious as some people make it out to be either. I think it looks worse because of the goaltending. Every shot we give up, seemingly regardless of where it's coming from, is more likely to go in with these sieves in net. I also think it messes with the skaters because they have zero confidence in the guy playing the most important position on the ice. They're basically going into games with one hand tied behind their back with this quality of goaltending.

It’s a terrible system! Everyone that isn’t Jack Hughes passes the puck in their own defensive zone as a way of clearing. They have a billion giveaways a game. We’re constantly on the boards on offense and opponents have their way with us.

Gallant obviously saw something wrong with us as an organization and was 100% justified in telling us to eat shit.

 

[Guadana]

Can anybody myself and @My3Sons out with what our record was in games we got .910% goaltending?

I know there's gotta be a site that will break those splits down.

It can't be bad I'm assuming, unless there was some kind of early Cory years level goal support in some of those games.

Even with as PATHETIC as Blackwood was, he was only one game below NHL 500. Same with Daws.

91% is league average?

 

[Bleedred]

91% is league average?

Just a little above

.907% was the league average this year, which I think is the lowest since maybe the 05-06 season when it was like .901%?

 

[Guadana]

Just a little above

.907% was the league average this year, which I think is the lowest since maybe the 05-06 season when it was like .901%?

Ok. Just a couple of minutes.

 

[Bleedred]

Last game was a FINE example of how bad our goaltending is.

Every goal but the third one (Dougie took Blackwood out and he couldn't possibly be expected to recover by the time the shot came through) was at the very best stoppable.

Goal 1 was not a good one, goal 2 screens BAD goalies like Blackwood. It was a clean point shot with a screen WAY up ahead.

Goal 4 was PATHETIC. A dribbling backhander that goes through the legs and squeaks over the goal line so slowly, they didn't even know it was a goal at first. They didn't even call it a goal initially.

The goaltending is unacceptable here. I'm at the point where I'd LOVE to send Blackwood on a rocket to Russia.

And it shouldn't be any surprise or a real hard sell to convince anyone that the goaltending is horrendous with several of these guys. Hammond, Gillies, not NHL caliber and didn't play in the before this year since 2017-2018. Neither of them have.

Daws is another one that it should be no surprise with. He played way too many games here this year. He's not ready for the NHL. If he ever will be, it certainly won't be any time soon.

 

[My3Sons]

91% is league average?

Ok. Just a couple of minutes.

I picked that number as a realistic number for looking at. I’m not sure how easy it would be to find games where a goalie had 907 or better

 

[Emperoreddy]

Last game was a FINE example of how bad our goaltending is.

Every goal but the third one (Dougie took Blackwood out and he couldn't possibly be expected to recover by the time the shot came through) was at the very best stoppable.

Goal 1 was not a good one, goal 2 screens BAD goalies like Blackwood. It was a clean point shot with a screen WAY up ahead.

Goal 4 was PATHETIC. A dribbling backhander that goes through the legs and squeaks over the goal line so slowly, they didn't even know it was a goal at first. They didn't even call it a goal initially.

The goaltending is unacceptable here. I'm at the point where I'd LOVE to send Blackwood on a rocket to Russia.

And it shouldn't be any surprise or a real hard sell to convince anyone that the goaltending is horrendous with several of these guys. Hammond, Gillies, not NHL caliber and didn't play in the before this year since 2017-2018. Neither of them have.

Daws is another one that it should be no surprise with. He played way too many games here this year. He's not ready for the NHL. If he ever will be, it certainly won't be any time soon.

I think its pretty standard practice to have the AHL coach play the same or similar system to what the NHL coach is doing.

Not to give Dineen a pass, but I don't know how much overall control he has over the larger system he has to employ.

 

[Guadana]

Can anybody myself and @My3Sons out with what our record was in games we got .910% goaltending?

I know there's gotta be a site that will break those splits down.

It can't be bad I'm assuming, unless there was some kind of early Cory years level goal support in some of those games.

Even with as PATHETIC as Blackwood was, he was only one game below NHL 500. Same with Daws.

League average SV% is 90.7%
Blackwood has 9 G with 90.7%+, 6 W, 3 OT\SO
Bernier has 4 G, 3 W, 1L (Blackwood missed 3goals in that game and was replaced by Bernier, now I will use only full or close to full games)
Gillies has 6 G, 1W, 3L, 2 OT\SO
Hammond has 2G, 1 W, 1 L
Daws has 10 G, 8 W, 2L
Wedgewood has 1 L
Schmid didn`t play any game with SV% above 90%

I think it`s not perfect, I could make some mistake, but we can see something interesting here. Draw your own conclusions.

 

[Bleedred]

League average SV% is 90.7%
Blackwood has 9 G with 90.7%+, 6 W, 3 OT\SO
Bernier has 4 G, 3 W, 1L (Blackwood missed 3goals in that game and was replaced by Bernier, now I will use only full or close to full games)
Gillies has 6 G, 1W, 3L, 2 OT\SO
Hammond has 2G, 1 W, 1 L
Daws has 10 G, 8 W, 2L
Wedgewood has 1 L
Schmid didn`t play any game with SV% above 90%

I think it`s not perfect, I could make some mistake, but we can see something interesting here. Draw your own conclusions.

When looking at Gillies game log, I did notice that he had a quite a few games above league average save percentage and didn't win any of those early on.

LA, Carolina, Tampa, Pittsburgh. All those were .912% or better starts and we didn't win any of them, so he suffered from lack of goal support in those games.

I'm not even counting the Dallas game where he had a .958% in 2 periods and came in after the game was already lost after it was 3-0 in the 1st period with Schmid, as that wasn't a Gillies start.

 

[RangerDoggo]

Someone somewhere was saying to trade for Hellybuck and I’m honestly down with that. Spencer Knight would be worth dealing for too.

The system and culture is shit but they do need to improve goaltending and they won’t find it in the open market. They need to be desperate. Give up assets if you have to.

 

[Guttersniped]

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.

What tells you that Detroit is ready to take the next step more than us right now? In the sense that they could use a coaching change that we can’t? He fired him because that team f***ing godawful and fans are fed up with him specifically.

This isn’t some 4D chess move, he gave the guy a two year extension last spring because he presumably likes him but the team got buried in goals in the 2nd half of the season despite the heroic efforts of very good goaltender. (Yes, there are teams that have worse team defense than us. And better goalies.)

And firing Ruff mid-season gets us who? An internal interim coach. Big whoop. And if you counter that with “hire Boudreau!” not with our goaltending. And they got him for one year, with an option for that either can turn down. I don’t see the same elements on our team for such a dramatic turn around (by ”elements” I mostly mean Demko & Miller).

The only plus of firing Ruff during the season was it definitely prevented him coming back next season. I had little interest in any of our interim coach candidates taking over and riding some short-term meaningless new coach bump.

If Ruff survives, I will have questions about Fitz for sure. I’m going to wait to see what happen’s first.

 

[Bleedred]

What tells you that Detroit is ready to take the next step more than us right now? In the sense that they could use a coaching change that we can’t? He fired him because that team f***ing godawful and fans are fed up with him specifically.

This isn’t some 4D chess move, he gave the guy a two year extension last spring because he presumably likes him but the team got buried in goals in the 2nd half of the season despite the heroic efforts of very good goaltender. (Yes, there are teams that have worse team defense than us. And better goalies.)

And firing Ruff mid-season gets us who? An internal interim coach. Big whoop. And if you counter that with “hire Boudreau!” not with our goaltending. And they got him for one year, with an option for that either can turn down. I don’t see the same elements on our team for such a dramatic turn around (by ”elements” I mostly mean Demko & Miller).

The only plus of firing Ruff is it for sure prevents him from coming back. I had little interest in any of our interim coach candidates taking over and riding some short-term meaningless new coach bump.

If Ruff survives, I will have questions about Fitz for sure. I’m going to wait to see what happen’s first.

Yeah, outside of Blashill, I don’t see any other coaches being announced as out yet and you know there will be more and I fully expect Ruff to be one of them.

You gotta assume DeBoer is out in Vegas. I would just about guarantee Bob Boughner is out in San Jose, but I don’t expect his termination to even be announced until they’ve hired a new GM.

I mean, for f***s sake, have they even announced that Mike Yeo isn’t coming back in Philly yet? Not that they even really need to announce that lol.

 

[Eggtimer]

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.

Totally agree with all of this. No structure and no real identity , too easy to play against. First thi g fix the goaltending , however it’s just not fixing the goaltending and presto … playoff team.Yes goaltending was a momunmentsl failure this season . Fix that AND construct a roster that complimemts our core , nkt just a mixture of whoever we happen to have in the system and however is available via UFA at that the (Tatar ) . I get wanting to try to give Jack an experienced winger instead of relying on rookies beside Jack , but Tatar was a poor choice . Need a player that can win board battles and drive the net.
Brodeir said it perfectly . We need to get heavier players to play with our skilled guys to let them do their thing.

 

[StevenToddIves]

On the Devils coaching situation:

1) We need to not think of Lindy Ruff as a complete failure. His #1 job was to develop the young talent. Hughes, Bratt, Mercer, Siegenthaler etc. all made giant leaps. Devils were not winning the Stanley Cup with any coach.

2) Ruff's time should be done. Now that the young stars are progressing, it's time to shoot for the 2023 playoffs, and Ruff is probably not the guy to get NJ there.

3) My suggestion for the new coach would be Kirk Mueller. Mueller is a very bright guy who has done excellently as assistant in Montreal and Calgary. He would have certainly gotten the Montreal job if he spoke French. He was a longtime Devils captain, and a character guy.

4) My back up suggestion would be Islanders assistant Lane Lambert, also a great hockey mind. You're probably going to need to move fast on him though, as he's my guess to fill the Detroit opening.

 

[NjDevsRR]

I mean its quite obvious what would happen if we got league average goaltending, we’d be middle in the pack overall in the league since we are middle in the pack in goals forced. This ain’t rocket science haha.

 

[RangerDoggo]

As raving mad as I am right now, at least I’m not Larry Brooks.

Devils need Buck Showalter-esque authority figure to restore success

The Devils need an individual with gravitas and a track record of success to restore seriousness and sense of purpose that has fallen into a black hole.

nypost.com

 

[Eggtimer]

Someone somewhere was saying to trade for Hellybuck and I’m honestly down with that. Spencer Knight would be worth dealing for too.

The system and culture is shit but they do need to improve goaltending and they won’t find it in the open market. They need to be desperate. Give up assets if you have to.

Knight won’t be moved . They refused to move him for Chychrun. That and he is not proven enough to warrant moving the massive amount of assets it would take to convince the Panthers to move him .

 

[MachoDiablo]

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.

Yeah, once they got Hall and company and wanted to compete they really dealt away a whole lot of second rounders. We had plenty of threads here with people correctly pointing out that tons of second rounders never really amount to anything in the NHL, but those were picks that could've added some much needed system depth, especially on the blue line given how many decent defensemen fall to the 30-60 range. Losing out on those for guys like MarJo or whoever else just wasn't going to work.

Hard to say what we would've gotten for Cory, but in a full teardown I assume they'd be able to do something like retain a good percentage of the money due to get some nicer picks or prospects. Obviously can't say for sure, guess we'll never know.

 

[Billdo]

As raving mad as I am right now, at least I’m not Larry Brooks.

Devils need Buck Showalter-esque authority figure to restore success

The Devils need an individual with gravitas and a track record of success to restore seriousness and sense of purpose that has fallen into a black hole.

nypost.com

I mean... where did he say something wrong?

 

[RangerDoggo]

I mean... where did he say something wrong?

Saying that Tortorella would be worth a shot, for starters

 

[Billdo]

Saying that Tortorella would be worth a shot, for starters

I don't think that it's that far out of the realm of possibilities