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

[Triumph]

When did Dellow do that, before he was hired by Vancouver in 2014?

He was hired by Edmonton, I think in 2013, but yes, I believe he wrote it in 2010. I think Nicklas Backstrom's long-term deal was the impetus for the investigation, or perhaps even Kovalchuk's long-term deal(s).

If it’s a one year deal then the extension has to come sooner than later.

If Bratt gets a 1-year deal, then he can't sign an extension until January 1, 2023.

I do think his agent probably sucks, you don’t want to be the biggest fish of some local guy. Bratt should have ditched this guy already. If they don’t get a long term deal here hopefully he does. Move up to a top agency dude and Joakim McGuire.

Yeah, I didn't realize Bratt was this guy's biggest client, always tough to be a client of one of these guys trying to make a name for themselves. I wonder how Gilles Lupien's career went after being fired by Brodeur.

 

[RangerDoggo]

Fitz is lowballing Bratt, and in turn Bratt is ardently refusing to sign long term. Both parties can be at fault.

 

[JimEIV]

...says a fan of the New Jersey Devils, a team that seldom led the league in scoring or was even close but nonetheless had an impressive 15+ year run of excellence because of defense,

Positive goal differential ever year from being top 10 in Goals Against EVERY year

Done with team defense....

Whooowee.. Took a rocket scientist to figure that one out. You needed an abstract formula for that one?

Who plays that way anymore?

 

[RangerDoggo]

I do think his agent probably sucks, you don’t want to be the biggest fish of some local guy. Bratt should have ditched this guy already. If they don’t get a long term deal here hopefully he does. Move up to a top agency dude and Joakim McGuire.

His agent is not doing anything he doesn't want.

just get a deal done fitz f***

You know damn well that isn't going to happen. Face reality. Bratt will never play for this team long term. It is time to move on and trade this petulant little shit.

 

[Devs3cups]

Fitz is lowballing Bratt, and in turn Bratt is ardently refusing to sign long term. Both parties can be at fault.

Highly doubt Fitz is lowballing Bratt. Bratt wants less term to get a paycheck, Fitz wants him here longterm at around 7-7.5.

 

[RangerDoggo]

Highly doubt Fitz is lowballing Bratt. Bratt wants less term to get a paycheck, Fitz wants him here longterm at around 7-7.5.

Then why the 2.5 million gap in money?

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

You know damn well that isn't going to happen. Face reality. Bratt will never play for this team long term. It is time to move on and trade this petulant little shit.

How many more posts like this are you gonna fart out? Worst case he’s getting a 1 year deal and he’s still an RFA. It is not “time to move on.”

 

[Guttersniped]

It’s not that easy or simple as you said where Fitz is lowballing Bratt. Arbitration is always like this where the team makes a lower number tham what they are willing to pay and the player ask for more . The usually (hopefully meet in the middle ‘ish). Also , if Fitz thinks he cannot extend Bratt and has a feeling that he wants to get to UFA as soon as possible , he is trying to get the lowest cap hit as possible to get maximum value in trade …..
Fitz isn’t dumb. He is not going to low ball Bratt amd lose him unless the writing is on the wall and Fitz needs to switch gears and maximize the return for him.

I know how arbitration works. I’m talking about if it gets to arbitration.

GMs typically avoid the hearing by agreeing to a 1 year deal at the last minute. If they can’t even agree on their own number between those two amounts and need an arbitrator to do it, that’s definitely a bad sign.

Fitz actually has a current need for that number to be low. We have 8.7m in cap space and need to sign 4 guys. Wood is guaranteed at least 3m.

No teams are taking bad contracts, or even blah contracts, it’s very hard to move cap in this market.

I don’t what his plan with the cap is. We’ll all find out. I do know if he goes to a hearing with Bratt the chances of him being on this team longterm take a big hit. They aren’t great already. Fitz needs to avoid going to a hearing.

Qualifying Wood was a disaster, we’re wasting desperately needed cap space to have an injured player for one year before he hits the UFA market.

 

[RangerDoggo]

How many more posts like this are you gonna fart out? Worst case he’s getting a 1 year deal and he’s still an RFA. It is not “time to move on.”

As many times as it takes to understand that I'm right. And then we do this bullshit song and dance again next year. I don't want to deal with this again. Trade him for a player who's fine playing in a culture of failure, because Bratt isn't.

 

[HBK27]

Then why the 2.5 million gap in money?

That's how arbitration salary submissions generally work.

Both sides low/high-ball the amounts and if it goes to arbitration the judge usually awards something close to the middle.

 

[Triumph]

Positive goal differential ever year from being top 10 in Goals Against EVERY year

Done with team defense....

Whooowee.. Took a rocket scientist to figure that one out. You needed an abstract formula for that one?

Who plays that way anymore?

That's exactly the point, nobody plays that way anymore, so you need more investigation to see what players are actually helping on defense versus hurting. Bratt helps on defense, everyone has better results with him. Tkachuk doesn't, at least not yet, he's still young and can figure things out.

 

[Devs3cups]

Then why the 2.5 million gap in money?

Arbitration offers mean nothing. For example, MTL offered 5.25 mil in arbitration to Subban back in the day, while his camp filled for just over 8 mil if I recall. A few days afterwards, Montreal signed him to a 9 mil deal.

Arbitration offers are not relevant to actual discussed numbers by both parties. They’re always pretty far appart.

 

[ninetyeight]

So if this goes to arbitration and they sign a 1 year 5.5m deal, is the silverlining in this that they don't have to pay anyone to take Tatar or Johnsson and can just let the contracts run out.

 

[TrufleShufle]

As many times as it takes to understand that I'm right. And then we do this bullshit song and dance again next year. I don't want to deal with this again. Trade him for a player who's fine playing in a culture of failure, because Bratt isn't.

Can you expand on how, in anyway, you are dealing with this? By reading random rumor news and tweets?

So Fitz is low balling and Bratt is tired of losing and wants out, I've asked but still have gotten an answer, please show me where you are getting this information so I can be upset as well.

 

[RangerDoggo]

So if this goes to arbitration and they sign a 1 year 5.5m deal, is the silverlining in this that they don't have to pay anyone to take Tatar or Johnsson and can just let the contracts run out.

We still have to deal with both of them taking up a roster spot, so that’s not a silver lining.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

As many times as it takes to understand that I'm right. And then we do this bullshit song and dance again next year. I don't want to deal with this again. Trade him for a player who's fine playing in a culture of failure, because Bratt isn't.

lol what

take a break my man

 

[RangerDoggo]

Can you expand on how, in anyway, you are dealing with this? By reading random rumor news and tweets?

So Fitz is low balling and Bratt is tired of losing and wants out, I've asked but still have gotten an answer, please show me where you are getting this information so I can be upset as well.

You should be upset regardless because in two years at the most, Bratt will not play here.

 

[Devs3cups]

 

[TrufleShufle]

 

[RangerDoggo]

lol what

take a break my man

That was a bit of a jump. Still, I am absolutely certain he doesn’t want to play here long term if this goes to arbitration, which it will. I don’t know what to tell you. Just wait.

Called it.

 

[theoptimist]

Man I loved Clarkson so much when he was here.

Only guy to score goals like him might be Bastian, I can see Zetterlund

 

[NJDevs26]

Highly doubt Fitz is lowballing Bratt. Bratt wants less term to get a paycheck, Fitz wants him here longterm at around 7-7.5.

Your definition of lowballing probably differs from Bratt and his agent’s, though I don’t think that anything in the 7’s could be considered lowballing I also don’t think that’s market value at this point. I also think the actual offer is probably in the 6’s which would be lowballish

 

[ninetyeight]

We still have to deal with both of them taking up a roster spot, so that’s not a silver lining.

That's nearly not as big of a deal, you can play them, healthy scratch them or send them to waivers. It would be a minor victory if Fitz can make the cap work without LTIR or paying assets to get rid of contracts.

 

[RangerDoggo]

Do you have any information? Don't act like you knew what was going on before that last tweet.

 

[Guttersniped]

His agent is not doing anything he doesn't want.


You know damn well that isn't going to happen. Face reality. Bratt will never play for this team long term. It is time to move on and trade this petulant little shit.

It has nothing to do with his agent doing what he “wants”, his agent has practically zero experience negotiating big deals like this in the NHL. He’s a Swedish agent who mostly handles players in European leagues.

He’s had one big NHL client before this, Ullmark. Ullmark never had a multi year deal, beyond a two-year minimum deal after his ELC, until he signed his 5 year/5m deal with Boston.

He had other guy with a real deal, the defenseman Gustav Forsling. Forsling has the only multi year RFA deal he ever negotiated, 3 years/2.67m.

You don’t typically want to be the biggest fish of a guy who almost never negotiates these types of deal. Loyalty is nice but you shouldn’t stay with an agent out of loyalty if he’s out of his league because you became a star.

Eichel was using some dumb local Boston agent with his dust-up with the Sabres and he only made it worse. That mess got a whole lot better when he moved to a bigger, more professional agent.