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

[Blackjack]

Lowkey huge reason this season sucked was our unbelievably awful home record.

38-38-5 .494%
Home 17-21-3 .451%
Away 21-18-2 .537%

That’s ridiculous. The last time we had a better away record than home? Last season, and it was f***ing annoying then.
Before that, 2000-01.
Before that, 1998-99.
Before that, never, because it’s happened 4 times in 40 seasons.

Usually the home record is a lot better than the away record, the Devils need to rediscover that time-honored tradition.

Home Records Ranked
(2020-21 skipped because who cares)
**Cursed Seasons where Home Record < Away Record
97-98 Home 29-10-2 .732%
99-00 Home 28-9-4 .732%
94-95 Home 14-4-6 .708%
93-94 Home 28-11-2 .707%
09-10 Home 27-10-4 .707%
08-09 Home 28-12-1 .695%
05-06 Home 27-11-3 .695%
06-07 Home 25-10-6 .683%
02-03 Home 25-11-5 .671%
96-97 Home 23-9-9 .671%
**00-01 Home 24-11-6 .659%
91-92 Home 24-12-4 .650%
07-08 Home 25-14-2 .634%
**22-23 Home 24-13-4 .634%
11-12 Home 24-13-4 .634%
90-91 Home 23-10-7 .662%
13-14 Home 21-11-9 .622%
92-93 Home 24-14-4 .619%
17-18 Home 23-14-4 .610%
03-04 Home 22-13-6 .610%
01-02 Home 22-13-6 .601%
87-88 Home 23-16-1 .588%
89-90 Home 22-15-3 .588%
12-13 Home 13-9-2 .583%
10-11 Home 22-16-3 .573%
18–19 Home 20-14-7 .573%
95-96 Home 22-17-2 .561%
**98-99 Home 19-14-8 .561%
14-15 Home 19-14-8 .561%
19-20 Home 13-11-10 .546%
86-87 Home 20-17-3 .538%
15-16 Home 19-17-5 .524%
88-89 Home 17-18-5 .488%
16-17 Home 16-17-8 .488%
**23-24 Home 17-21-3 .451%
21-22 Home 16-20-5 .451%
85-86 Home 17-21-2 .450%
84-85 Home 13-21-6 .400%
82-83 Home 11-20-9 .388%
83-84 Home 10-28-2 .275%

Seriously, what is that bullshit for 23-24?

As a comparison, here’s the Away & overall record (in parentheses) of 23-24 and the four seasons with the closest record.

88-89 Away 10-23-7 .338% (27-41-12 .413%)
16-17 Away 12-23-6 .366% (28-40-14 .427%)
23-24 Away 21-18-2 .537% (38-38-5 .494%)
21-22 Away 11-26-4 .317% (27-46-9 .384%)
85-86 Away 11-28-1 .288% (28-49-3 .369%)

An example of how to do slightly under .500 right:
1990-91
Home 23-10-7 .662%
Away 9-23-8 .325%
Overall 32-33-15 .494%

I feel like this terrible home team stuff has been going on for a while. I’m actually surprised it just started last season.

Man I hate going to losing games. Spend all that money to go and be sad and get taunted by the little pockets of visiting team fans.

 

[Better Call Sal]

I can't believe how lucky I was this season in attending games. Between 2 preseason games and the games I attended during the regular season, last night was the first regulation loss I saw live all year (7-1-1).

I'll consider this the correction for the 19-20 season where it took me 10 games before I saw them win one.

 

[britdevil]

What a miserable end to an abhorrent season.

 

[TheUnseenHand]

View attachment 852703

What a miserable end to an abhorrent season.

A fitting end for this team really.

 

[FinnishDevil]

Anyone know when the exit interviews are? Didnt see anything from Amanda or Novo.

 

[theoptimist]

Jesper's post game interview was refreshing. I hope the "A" is stapled on his jersey next season.

 

[My3Sons]

They said Hynes system was too complicated..

They said Ruff's system was too loose.

They said Green was just bad.

They said it was the goalies

They said it was the scoring

They said it was the defense

Hmmm?

Define “they”. You can’t take what a few individuals say and turn it into some monolithic hive mind. You are also conflating things that don’t go together. What does Hynes have to do with anything? NJ was great last season. Great regular season and even a big series win over the Rangers in 7 games when you’d expect a soft gutless team to wither but they didn’t. So really the only question is what went wrong this season. And while Ruff had his naysayers I don’t think the organization blamed him for this season. If you could get a straight answer from Fitz my guess is he’d say the injuries and goaltending sunk them. This season was bad enough without going out of your way to artificially make it worse.

 

[Guadana]

I can't believe how lucky I was this season in attending games. Between 2 preseason games and the games I attended during the regular season, last night was the first regulation loss I saw live all year (7-1-1).

I'll consider this the correction for the 19-20 season where it took me 10 games before I saw them win one.

Can you visit Devils games more often?

 

[MB3]

Define “they”. You can’t take what a few individuals say and turn it into some monolithic hive mind. You are also conflating things that don’t go together. What does Hynes have to do with anything? NJ was great last season. Great regular season and even a big series win over the Rangers in 7 games when you’d expect a soft gutless team to wither but they didn’t. So really the only question is what went wrong this season. And while Ruff had his naysayers I don’t think the organization blamed him for this season. If you could get a straight answer from Fitz my guess is he’d say the injuries and goaltending sunk them. This season was bad enough without going out of your way to artificially make it worse.

no man you’re missing it, that’s his magic trick. if you spent all of your time online complaining about your fellow fans, you retain the false sense of superiority required to rub everyone’s nose in things when they go south.

 

[Emperoreddy]

We should be seeing an announcement that all the coaches are relieved of duty, not hearing that Green is getting an interview.

Fitz has absolutely no obligation to entertain Green at all. Dude should be fired

 

[Call Me Al]

We should be seeing an announcement that all the coaches are relieved of duty, not hearing that Green is getting an interview.

Fitz has absolutely no obligation to entertain Green at all. Dude should be fired

he can’t announce he’s fired on a live broadcast while the game is ongoing. i would be shocked if green is hired as the coach, his tenure as coach was as bad as any this side of maclean

 

[guitarguyvic]

We should be seeing an announcement that all the coaches are relieved of duty, not hearing that Green is getting an interview.

Fitz has absolutely no obligation to entertain Green at all. Dude should be fired

Just so many f***ing red flags with the leadership of this org. This isn't the first example of something Fitz has said or done that seems to belie that his personal allegiances don't interfere with what's best for the hockey team.

And/or in this case...that his assessment of coaches is highly questionable, to put it mildly.

 

[My3Sons]

no man you’re missing it, that’s his magic trick. if you spent all of your time online complaining about your fellow fans, you retain the false sense of moral superiority required to rub everyone’s nose in things when they go south.

Jim has been much more even handed recently. He acknowledged injuries as the biggest problem this season in an earlier post for example. I get the frustration. This was a terribly disappointing year. And it does seem like multiple different things went wrong. But you have to maintain your sense of perspective. As @Bleedred has stated, the good thing to come out of the bad finish is the lack of improvement under Green. Hopefully that has shown management they need a completely new voice and cannot just hire one of Fitz's buddies. This coaching hire probably shapes the next three years or so fo the team. Get it right and I expect they bounce back. Get it wrong and Fitz is probably out and who knows what happens after that.

 

[JK3]

 

[Satans Hockey]

So going into next season we should be wearing the stadium series jerseys full time and absolutely retiring the 3rd blacks, final record for the season...

Jersey / helmet records...

Road Whites / white helmets 21-16-1 = 43 points

Home Reds 13-14-2 = 28 points

3rd Blacks 2-7-1 = 5 points

Stadium Series 2-0 = 4 points

Road Reds 0-1-1 = 1 point

Road Whites / black helmets 0-1 = 0 points

Total 38-39-5 = 81 points

 

[JrFischer54]

So going into next season we should be wearing the stadium series jerseys full time and absolutely retiring the 3rd blacks, final record for the season...

Jersey / helmet records...

Road Whites / white helmets 21-16-1 = 43 points

Home Reds 13-14-2 = 28 points

3rd Blacks 2-7-1 = 5 points

Stadium Series 2-0 = 4 points

Road Reds 0-1-1 = 1 point

Road Whites / black helmets 0-1 = 0 points

Total 38-39-5 = 81 points

those black jerseys were are so bad its comical that people actually bought them out of desperation for a black jersey. so lazy

would like to add the KC/rockies/devils retro really grew on me

 

[ZachaFlockaFlame]

View attachment 852703

What a miserable end to an abhorrent season.

The stretch after Green came initially horrid too, the beginning of the March was abhorrent too. They had like 1 or 2 wins in a 3 week stretch. We can shit on Green but this team gave up completely once Lindy was gone which is something that needs to be talked about.

 

[guitarguyvic]

The stretch after Green came initially horrid too, the beginning of the March was abhorrent too. They had like 1 or 2 wins in a 3 week stretch. We can shit on Green but this team gave up completely once Lindy was gone which is something that needs to be talked about.

I feel like at least some of the players recognize that this coaching staff was part of the problem, and that after Ruff got turfed they were playing for a lame duck stooge of a coach who has no business being in that position.

 

[Satans Hockey]

Would like to add the KC/rockies/devils retro really grew on me

I hated them, seeing blue on our jerseys probably took 5 years off my life.

My biggest complaint about all the jerseys we have now is if you go back and watch the 2012 run the stands were almost all red jerseys. Now we have all these red/green variations, the black 3rds and the awful wonder bread jerseys and now the stadium series(which are red at least)

I just miss how united our stands use to look and now it's just a mess of different colors.

 

[NJDfan86]

Just so many f***ing red flags with the leadership of this org. This isn't the first example of something Fitz has said or done that seems to belie that his personal allegiances don't interfere with what's best for the hockey team.

And/or in this case...that his assessment of coaches is highly questionable, to put it mildly.

Seriously you guys are here calling for Green’s head and public embarrassment so it will make you feel better.

Some people really need to learn some empathy - I’d have far more questions about the type of people running this organization if they acted as callous as suggested. Green is not going to be the coach here.

 

[Davegarri]

Seriously you guys are here calling for Green’s head and public embarrassment so it will make you feel better.

Some people really need to learn some empathy - I’d have far more questions about the type of people running this organization if they acted as callous as suggested. Green is not going to be the coach here.

I think we should burn him alive in championship plaza

 

[Satans Hockey]

Seriously you guys are here calling for Green’s head and public embarrassment so it will make you feel better.

Some people really need to learn some empathy - I’d have far more questions about the type of people running this organization if they acted as callous as suggested. Green is not going to be the coach here.

You actually enjoy seeing Fitz's sobbing face? Lol

 

[Bleedred]

Green has been a bad hockey coach his entire time in the NHL. It wasn’t just his time here. But our record here (with above average goaltending) under him was extremely similar to his record in his last 25 games in Vancouver.

I don’t think Vancouver was stupid to hire him as head coach in the first place back in 2017, but they sure were beyond stupid to re-up him in 2021 when his contract just ended. They should have let him walk when they had him coaching that year as a lame duck. He only lasted 25 games into that new contract.

Green has always been bad. Some of us (at least one of us) was preaching the shit out of this when people were calling for Ruff’s firing. I kept saying if it happens in-season you’re gonna get Green.

I said we’d go 7-13-1. We went 8-12-1.

 

[Bleedred]

he can’t announce he’s fired on a live broadcast while the game is ongoing. i would be shocked if green is hired as the coach, his tenure as coach was as bad as any this side of maclean

There will never be another John MacLean. I don’t think we’ll ever see a world where the worst head coach of the New Jersey Devils isn’t John MacLean at any point. He was in a tier of his own.

But I honestly think Green was the second worst head coach we’ve ever had. Maybe you can argue some of the really early coaches were worse. Those rosters were also abysmal though. Herb Brooks was definitely bad, but not Green bad. Kevin Constantine was also bad. Brent Sutter certainly wasn’t good.

Green is also even worse than some of the rando hodgepodge and other interim stuff we’ve had in the last 10 years. I’m talking the N. Bench and Nasreddine.

 

[TrufleShufle]

In what is hopefully the last few times I'll have a chance to bring this up, Green is referenced in this video, which is interesting regardless.