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

[Emperoreddy]

We had a 60-ish point season even with Bratt and Nico making quantum leaps over a full season and Hughes doing so in 50 games, imagine how bad the record would have been if they all merely had modest improvements? Other than Jack hopefully staying healthy and likely improving a slight notch I don’t know if you can expect any better from those three on the whole.

They don't need to take more quantum leaps. They simply need to not have .850 goaltending.

This really isn't that complicated.

 

[hidek91]

We had a 60-ish point season even with Bratt and Nico making quantum leaps over a full season and Hughes doing so in 50 games, imagine how bad the record would have been if they all merely had modest improvements? Other than Jack hopefully staying healthy and likely improving a slight notch I don’t know if you can expect any better from those three on the whole.

Not saying that you're wrong but Ruff's system inflates offensive production at the cost of defence. That's why our forwards had relatively good season production-wise but we were playing bad hockey.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

Uhmmm...Well...I am not sure how to articulate this....But

We just witnessed 50 Regulation and Overtime Losses - That is 1 loss more the Devils inaugural season in 1982-83 and they only had 80 games

You objectively just witnessed the worst season in Devils History...I suppose an optimist can look at this and think that there is no place to go but up but I distinctly remember typing the same thing last year.

Because we have one of the best young cores in the league. We’re going to be a playoff team at the very least. The goaltending which was by far our biggest problem will almost certainly be at least a bit better. Building a good team takes time. Especially with how Lou left us.

Look at Tampa Bay. They took Steven Stamkos 1st overall in 2008, and Hedman 2nd overall in 2009. Kucherov in 2011, Vasilevsky in 2012, and Point in 2014. It takes time. They were obviously very excited about those players but it didn’t lead to immediate success. But I’m will come. There’s no guarantee we’ll be as good as them but it’s a given save us doing some really stupid stuff that we will at the very least be a playoff team in the near future.

Same with Colorado. They got Landeskog and Mackinnon. It still took time and then got Makar in 2017, 4 years after taking Mackinnon 1st overall and Landeskog 2nd overall. Plus Rantanen in 2015. It takes time for the young talent to turn into results and doesn’t always go perfectly but when you have as much young talent as we do right now it’s bound to happen.

Doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen next year and doesn’t mean we’ll be as good as those teams. But the Devils are going to be a good hockey team in the near future.

We had a 60-ish point season even with Bratt and Nico making quantum leaps over a full season and Hughes doing so in 50 games, imagine how bad the record would have been if they all merely had modest improvements? Other than Jack hopefully staying healthy and likely improving a slight notch I don’t know if you can expect any better from those three on the whole.

We don’t need better from them. We need better goaltending.

 

[NJDevs26]

They don't need to take more quantum leaps. They simply need to not have .850 goaltending.

This really isn't that complicated.

Because we have one of the best young cores in the league. We’re going to be a playoff team at the very least. The goaltending which was by far our biggest problem will almost certainly be at least a bit better. Building a good team takes time. Especially with how Lou left us.

Look at Tampa Bay. They took Steven Stamkos 1st overall in 2008, and Hedman 2nd overall in 2009. Kucherov in 2011, Vasilevsky in 2012, and Point in 2014. It takes time. They were obviously very excited about those players but it didn’t lead to immediate success. But I’m will come. There’s no guarantee we’ll be as good as them but it’s a given save us doing some really stupid stuff that we will at the very least be a playoff team in the near future.

Same with Colorado. They got Landeskog and Mackinnon. It still took time and then got Makar in 2017, 4 years after taking Mackinnon 1st overall and Landeskog 2nd overall. Plus Rantanen in 2015. It takes time for the young talent to turn into results and doesn’t always go perfectly but when you have as much young talent as we do right now it’s bound to happen.

Doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen next year and doesn’t mean we’ll be as good as those teams. But the Devils are going to be a good hockey team in the near future.


We don’t need better from them. We need better goaltending.

Which is only part of the puzzle…not a silver bullet that jumps you from 65 to 105. And not as easy to find a piece to fill that puzzle as is being made out to be.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

Which is only part of the puzzle…not a silver bullet that jumps you from 65 to 105. And not as easy to find a piece to fill that puzzle as is being made out to be.

We don’t need to jump from 65 to 105 man. Who’s saying that?

Even a somewhat close to average goalie keeps us closer to the playoffs. We could literally do nothing and expect to have better goaltending next season. But we aren’t going to do nothing. And hopefully we can get at least average goaltending.

 

[NJDevs26]

I mean you pretty much needed 100 to make the last playoff spot this year, no I’m not expecting them to jump from 60 to 100 but they gotta get at least in the 85-90 range which is still a pitifully low bar for year #8 of the rebuild(s). Goaltending went wrong this year but it’s not like they go through next year without a single key injury or slump. And we failed to have ‘average’ goaltending the last two years despite Fitz making a chalk move to fill the void each time.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

I mean you pretty much needed 100 to make the last playoff spot this year, no I’m not expecting them to jump from 60 to 100 but they gotta get at least in the 85-90 range which is still a pitifully low bar for year #8 of the rebuild(s). Goaltending went wrong this year but it’s not like they go through next year without a single key injury or slump. And we failed to have ‘average’ goaltending the last two years despite Fitz making a chalk move each time.

I could care less if this is technical year 8. We wasted some years. Prior to getting Nico our hopes rested on John Quenville, Michael McLeod, and Pavel Zacha. 5 years since we got Hischier and Bratt came in then as well.

As I said. Look at Tampa Bay. Look at Colorado. Look at how long it took those teams to get to where they are now after their high picks.

What do you think Colorado fans were saying in 2017 when they were picking Makar 4th overall in 2017 after taking Mackinnon 1st in 2013 and Landeskog 2nd in 2011.

Or Tampa when they were drafting Drouin 3rd in 2013 after taking Stamkos 1st in 2008 and Hedman 2nd in 2009.

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

 

[The Wumpus]

Best Puppy Available

 

[beekay414]

If you couldn't see marked improvement when you watched this team last year, then you're simply choosing not to see it.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

If you couldn't see marked improvement when you watched this team last year, then you're simply choosing not to see it.

It was also pretty damn fun to watch a lot of games even if they lost. I’d much rather watch my team lost 4-3 or 7-5 playing fast, fun hockey than watch them lose 1-0 or 2-1 playing defensively. Especially when it was with Jack Hughes buzzing around. Who cares that Gilles couldn’t stop a beach ball.

 

[glenwo2]

It was also pretty damn fun to watch a lot of games even if they lost. I’d much rather watch my team lost 4-3 or 7-5 playing fast, fun hockey than watch them lose 1-0 or 2-1 playing defensively. Especially when it was with Jack Hughes buzzing around. Who cares that Gilles couldn’t stop a beach ball.

He couldn't stop a nosebleed as well.

 

[MadDevil]

That puppy is too small and soft. Fire Fitz immediately!

 

[Guttersniped]

We had some of those pieces last year and finished with the worst record since the Reagan administration, and the bad goaltending argument is partially cope.

Hughes took a huge step forward in each season, so we didn’t have this version and he should be even better next season.

Hischier was better is 2nd season than his rookie season, that narrative is wrong. The one time I’ve been disappointed by him was his start in 2019-20, though he wasn’t the only one that year He picked up his play a lot as the season went on but then injured his knee in February.

Nico played 21 games last season. Just to show how unrealistic people are about players returning from injuries, I remember people complaining about his performance last season by his second game back. Others said he surely should have been up to speed by five games (just… because). Ruff said it took awhile into this season for Nico to get back into true game shape.

Bratt couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn last season, that was something he worked on in off-season.

The hope is we’ll have a healthy Dougie Hamilton for a longer portion of the season.

I was realistically hoping for 6th place in 2020-21, if things broke well for us, which they started to not to do beginning with the retirement of Crawford on January 9th. The division and schedule was clearly going to be a meat grinder going in. A young team with a new coach was going struggle more without the practice time. If you don’t remember, we didn’t get any preseason games.

We got one lol extra camp day to make up for the fact that we were one of the seven non-bubble teams and the break between our games was from Mar 10, 2020 to Jan 14, 2021.

Then we had the COVID outbreak after 9 games and break between games from Jan 31 to Feb 16. With 47 games left, we had games every other day, with 10 b2b, until May.

I don’t know, 2020-21, is a odd season to be upset about, it was just so weird, grueling and short with a unique set of circumstances. It was an obvious “let the kids play” season reset after the crash & burn in 2019-20, in recognition of our disadvantages and the empty arenas.

This team didn’t have this kind of young talent previously and these specifically players weren’t at this level previously.

I don’t understand the goaltending comment. You do need your starters to play or have back-ups who can function as starters. It’s an important position. Would we have made the playoffs if our starters were healthy? Considering that it took 100 points to make it the East this year, so, yes, that would be tough. We would have done a lot better though. Not sure what the confusion is there.

I don’t like Ruff’s approach to defensive schemes. Having gone Utica Comets’ first game, and then seeing them enthusiastically use the Swarm Defense (4 players, including both defensemen go to the corner to win puck possession while one forward defends the net front), it definitely reminded of the annoying bs we‘ve dealt with (some of which Ruff later modified because we were getting burned hard). Poor Utica & Dineen, I did immediately think “oh, no, not this shit” lol.

 

[SpitfireG]

Because we have one of the best young cores in the league. We’re going to be a playoff team at the very least. The goaltending which was by far our biggest problem will almost certainly be at least a bit better. Building a good team takes time. Especially with how Lou left us.

Look at Tampa Bay. They took Steven Stamkos 1st overall in 2008, and Hedman 2nd overall in 2009. Kucherov in 2011, Vasilevsky in 2012, and Point in 2014. It takes time. They were obviously very excited about those players but it didn’t lead to immediate success. But I’m will come. There’s no guarantee we’ll be as good as them but it’s a given save us doing some really stupid stuff that we will at the very least be a playoff team in the near future.

Same with Colorado. They got Landeskog and Mackinnon. It still took time and then got Makar in 2017, 4 years after taking Mackinnon 1st overall and Landeskog 2nd overall. Plus Rantanen in 2015. It takes time for the young talent to turn into results and doesn’t always go perfectly but when you have as much young talent as we do right now it’s bound to happen.

Doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen next year and doesn’t mean we’ll be as good as those teams. But the Devils are going to be a good hockey team in the near future.


We don’t need better from them. We need better goaltending.

In average it takes 5-6 yrs from first season when players starts pruduce at full of potential. I mean stable perfomannce as criteria is PPG forwards and TOI to defensmens, to understand how and when to slow down the game pace and read it, to take mature phisically & psychlogically + expirience, the best PP team are driving by most experienced gyus

Right now the Devils is youngest team in NHL

Next season the goal for Devils to win 35-40 games and keep fighting for spot in playoffs.
Since 2023-24 Devils should become playoff team (it will 6 yrs from Nico draft, 4yrs for Jack, 6 season for Bratt + more expericed Rango & Co) 42 wins+

In eastern conference Islanders, Capitals, Pens & Boston will take overage with longterm leaders contracts, so about 4 spots to new playoff conteders like Devils, Columbus, Detroit...

 

[Triumph]

Not saying that you're wrong but Ruff's system inflates offensive production at the cost of defence. That's why our forwards had relatively good season production-wise but we were playing bad hockey.

What is the evidence for this claim? It sure isn't borne out by the 2020-21 season.

 

[The Wumpus]

Devils forwards this summer after reading HF boards

 

[Brooklyndevil]

They improved their play this year, they were a better 5 on 5 team this year then in past years.

Big problem was the goaltending got even worse then past years. It's holding the team back from having the better results people want and honestly the team deserves.

I get you. They improved a bit. But at the end of the day we’re picking top 5. As for goaltending, unfortunately, injuries happen. It seems that you actually need 3 decent goalies these days. Look at Pittsburgh playing their 3rd stringer. That’s on the GM.

 

[Brooklyndevil]

I could care less if this is technical year 8. We wasted some years. Prior to getting Nico our hopes rested on John Quenville, Michael McLeod, and Pavel Zacha. 5 years since we got Hischier and Bratt came in then as well.

As I said. Look at Tampa Bay. Look at Colorado. Look at how long it took those teams to get to where they are now after their high picks.

What do you think Colorado fans were saying in 2017 when they were picking Makar 4th overall in 2017 after taking Mackinnon 1st in 2013 and Landeskog 2nd in 2011.

Or Tampa when they were drafting Drouin 3rd in 2013 after taking Stamkos 1st in 2008 and Hedman 2nd in 2009.

Both those teams did a much better job of drafting than the Devils as you point out. That’s why we better nail our next pick.

 

[devilsblood]

I get you. They improved a bit. But at the end of the day we’re picking top 5. As for goaltending, unfortunately, injuries happen. It seems that you actually need 3 decent goalies these days. Look at Pittsburgh playing their 3rd stringer. That’s on the GM.

Louis Domingue is Pitt's 3rd stringer.

It's tough enough to get two solid goalies, let alone a 3rd. Some teams have trouble getting one.

 

[Captain3rdLine]

Both those teams did a much better job of drafting than the Devils as you point out. That’s why we better nail our next pick.

That’s certainly arguable. Maybe better than our Zacha and McLeod picks but there’s a Brett Connolly 6th overall in there, a Drouin 3rd overall pick, and a Slatter Koekkoek 10th pick as well as other picks that didn’t turn out. They hit on Stamkos and Hedman which were pretty obvious picks at the time and then took a goalie in the first round which turned out and then obviously had a couple steals in Kucherov (2nd round) and Point (3rd round).

We made the right decisions at first overall with Hischier and Hughes, found Bratt in the 6th round, Sharangovich in the 5th and are waiting to see how some of our other picks end up (Smith, Holtz, Mercer, Mukhammadullin, Hughes, Okhotiuk, Boqvist)

Would have to look at Colorado but there’s definitely missed picks in there too. Tyson Jost 10th overall comes to mind. Every team misses picks and at the end of the day it often comes down to luck, timing and a lot of other things.

 

[HenriquesJawLine]

Not saying that you're wrong but Ruff's system inflates offensive production at the cost of defence. That's why our forwards had relatively good season production-wise but we were playing bad hockey.

6th best in the league in HDCA, it wasn't the defense and we were not playing bad hockey

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Couple things since I wasn't here all season:

- any Jack Hughes doubters left out there? Wonder if he is still "an embarrassment"?
- any Jesper Bratt doubters still out there?
- who remembers last summer when people were bitching and moaning about Siegs? He is already a legit top 4 defensive DMan.
- can we please for the love of Christ get a God damn goalie?
- trade #2 for the best young NHLer you can.

 

[BostonDevil]

I'll say what I said last year - I don't need the President's Trophy. I don't even need the playoffs. I DO NEED improvement in the standings.

I don't want to hear excuses any more. 2 years ago it was the shortened season. Last year it was COVID. This year was goaltending. Are they all valid excuses? Probably. No more excuses. Fix the f'n problem if there is one!

This team needs to finish 5th in the division at minimum. I don't care about what other teams are doing. This team needs to put up results in the standings.

In the end though, I expect them to be right back down in the top 5 of the draft again because something else will happen and Fitz will just sit around and watch it go down like he has in the past. We're great at winning the summer but losing the winter. Enough is enough.

"Wheeeee! We got another good prospect!!" If we don't have enough good prospects at this point to put a respectable team on the ice, what good is having them?

It's time to win

 

[Emperoreddy]