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

[Edmonton East]

Has anyone looked into examples of new head coaches (non retiree takeovers) keeping the overwhelming majority of the former staff and subsequent team performance?

Gut says it's abnormal for an outside the org new HC, who is replacing a fired coach, to keep 80% of the staff. Kinda strange there was no real serious review either.....like Keefe wasn't interested in building his own staff. Normal to have some holdovers, but the lack of turnover seems weird at a glance.

Just two recent examples: Maurice turned over the majority of the Panthers staff. Same goes for Laviolette. I get keeping a couple people, but barely changing anything to make it your own staff seems bizarre.

I'm more curious what those tiers mean.

To me

Tier 1: is Top line forward on any team.

Tier 2: is 2nd line forward on any team 1st line forward on some.

Tier 3: middle 6 forward on any team. 2nd line forward on some

Tier 4: 4th liner that can play up to 3rd.


There is no 5, 6, 7....those would all be extras.


We didn't miss the playoffs because of goaltending.

It's pretty obvious what they mean in the context of the list, but I'll spell it out: I can see arguments in the ranking of the players within the tiers. Example: Lazar over Bastian

 

[KovalchukFistPump]

We didn't miss the playoffs because of goaltending.

That's wrong to the point where it's not worth arguing. In a normal year where you need 98+ points to make it, sure. But in a year last year means:

-We are well above teams like the Isles, Caps, Flyers, etc already
-We don't trade Toffoli and Miller
-We probably add another defender at the deadline. Probably should have traded for Zadorov anyway but I get why Fitz wanted to go for a better player like Tanev instead.


All you had to do was watch the game to see that the goaltending was even worse than the Save Percentage said. Backbreaking goals that mentally hurt a young team. A steadier guy in the back makes everyone else play calmer and better.

 

[Bleedred]

We just dealt with a year where we constantly went down. Constantly giving up the goal on the first shot is a killer.

Possibly just a one season, random trend by him and not normal? Hopefully.

 

[Edmonton East]

Nate Bastian over Curtis Lazar is a wild take.

So, again, and it should be obvious from the context of that post: same tier = I can see arguments for one over the other. That is literally what tiered ranking is. Very common in both the sports world and white collar, so I'm surprised some don't get the methodology.

As for them being in the same tier and me personally having Bastian above Lazar, I have no idea what's "wild" about that. Lazar had a career year boosted by a hot streak....these are still comparable players.

 

[devilsblood]

The Markstrom fanboying is dangerous. Considering this org has been one of the worst in the entire league regarding goalie valuations for several years now, you'd think folks would show a little more caution.

Even impartial outsiders who like Markstrom criticize his consistency and tendency to allow easy early goals. People can live in denial all they want, but it's a valid concern (in addition to age). It's an upgrade at the position, but remains a serious overpay imo, especially considering short contract, age, and Devs coming off awful season.

Not sure how much fanboying is going on, but I do think that when guys post how good his hd save % is, they are ignoring that his non hd save % must be pretty lousy given his overall save %.

 

[Bleedred]

Has anyone looked into examples of new head coaches (non retiree takeovers) keeping the overwhelming majority of the former staff and subsequent team performance?

Gut says it's abnormal for an outside the org new HC, who is replacing a fired coach, to keep 80% of the staff. Kinda strange there was no real serious review either.....like Keefe wasn't interested in building his own staff. Normal to have some holdovers, but the lack of turnover seems weird at a glance.

Just two recent examples: Maurice turned over the majority of the Panthers staff. Same goes for Laviolette. I get keeping a couple people, but barely changing anything to make it your own staff seems bizarre.


It's pretty obvious what they mean in the context of the list, but I'll spell it out: I can see arguments in the ranking of the players within the tiers. Example: Lazar over Bastian

Honestly, I feel like the idea of a new head coach being allowed to bring in all of his own assistants is something that exists on this forum for some reason and not in the actual league. Usually the new head coach only brings in one assistant of his own, sometimes two. Colliton seems to be that guy for Keefe.

McGill and Sarge are both still fairly new assistants. They were only here for half of Ruff’s tenure.

Now the guy that I’m really surprised is staying on is Chris Taylor. He was Ruff’s handpicked guy to bring in. I’m pretty shocked he’s still here. I thought he’d for sure be gone.

Separate from them but still part of the staff and assistants, I’m also shocked Rogalski survived, but that I kind of saw coming after the post-deadline goalies performed well. I did not at all see Chris Taylor staying. I actually thought there was a better chance he’d end up with Lindy in Buffalo than be here for another year.

For what it’s worth, Fitz said something in one of the pressers. Can’t remember if it was the end of season presser or the one for Keefe’s hiring. He was asked about the assistants and he said something like “they’re the same assistants we had a record season with the year before”.

 

[TrufleShufle]

I’m not sure who says any of that but you sure owned that imaginary person in your head real good.

But anyway, Mercer was so obviously bad by just watching the games that I’m not sure how this even became an analytics conversation. He was pathetic — and looked so physically weak even on a team that isn’t very physical…which is why the questioning of his usage is also quite puzzling. If you couldn’t see why this player wasn’t used with Nico, you need to watch closer. Very bad!

Still think he’ll be a good player but he wasn’t even close to that last year.

Your telling me, in the midst of a debate about a player, if someone brings up HD or something similar and the other person says "it doesn't tell the whole picture," it's not met with "it's ok you don't understand it"?

I guarantee the first person to think, "hey this guy has been on the ice when this many goals were scored for the team and this many against, he must be pretty good." And then continued with that until people adopted +/- as stat they thought told a lot more about a player than it actually did. The first people to say, "wait a second here, you guys are missing a ton of info" were more than certainly met with the same tone.

Also Mercer had a down year, but you are describing someone way worse than what we saw, even if he played poorly.

 

[Edmonton East]

Honestly, I feel like the idea of a new head coach being allowed to bring in all of his own assistants is something that exists on this forum for some reason and not in the actual league. Usually the new head coach only brings in one assistant of his own, sometimes two. Colliton seems to be that guy for Keefe.

McGill and Sarge are both still fairly new assistants. They were only here for half of Ruff’s tenure.

Now the guy that I’m really surprised is staying on is Chris Taylor. He was Ruff’s handpicked guy to bring in. I’m pretty shocked he’s still here. I thought he’d for sure be gone.

Separate from them but still part of the staff and assistants, I’m also shocked Rogalski survived, but that I kind of saw coming after the post-deadline goalies performed well. I did not at all see Chris Taylor staying. I actually thought there was a better chance he’d end up with Lindy in Buffalo than be here for another year.

For what it’s worth, Fitz said something in one of the pressers. Can’t remember if it was the end of season presser or the one for Keefe’s hiring. He was asked about the assistants and he said something like “they’re the same assistants we had a record season with the year before”.

...but I literally gave you two very recent examples of competitive teams where a new HC turned over the majority of the staff. So that's a very interesting statement to lead off with. And I never said all. In fact, I said verbatim, "normal to have some holdovers."

 

[NJDevs26]

Honestly, I feel like the idea of a new head coach being allowed to bring in all of his own assistants is something that exists on this forum for some reason and not in the actual league. Usually the new head coach only brings in one assistant of his own, sometimes two. Colliton seems to be that guy for Keefe.

McGill and Sarge are both still fairly new assistants. They were only here for half of Ruff’s tenure.

Now the guy that I’m really surprised is staying on is Chris Taylor. He was Ruff’s handpicked guy to bring in. I’m pretty shocked he’s still here. I thought he’d for sure be gone.

Separate from them but still part of the staff and assistants, I’m also shocked Rogalski survived, but that I kind of saw coming after the post-deadline goalies performed well. I did not at all see Chris Taylor staying. I actually thought there was a better chance he’d end up with Lindy in Buffalo than be here for another year.

For what it’s worth, Fitz said something in one of the pressers. Can’t remember if it was the end of season presser or the one for Keefe’s hiring. He was asked about the assistants and he said something like “they’re the same assistants we had a record season with the year before”.

Which is a wild quote…same assistants other than one big omission

 

[Monsieur Verdoux]

I'd say it's apples and oranges. They do different things very well with some overlap.

Both are about 80 point players, but one is a Selke caliber center and one is a really good winger. I always choose a (a Selke caliber) center if those are the options.

 

[JimEIV]

Bratt and Nico's point production over their respective careers have been pretty close

Nico 452 games 353 points .78 PPG
Bratt 471 games 359 points .76 PPG

That close you have to give the nod to the center...A true two way center is way more valuable than a winger.

But...

Bratt has been a little more durable and is incredible with the puck and on the rush. He's certainly more fun to watch. I just feel like Bratt may have more room to hit higher plateaus than Nico does..

Still taking the center, it's just I could imagine a future monster season from Bratt before Nico.

 

[Triumph]

...but I literally gave you two very recent examples of competitive teams where a new HC turned over the majority of the staff. So that's a very interesting statement to lead off with. And I never said all. In fact, I said verbatim, "normal to have some holdovers."

Maurice turned over a lot of the staff but also Brunette was the assistant who was made a head coach, so he was already leaving.

The Devils have traditionally not had a lot of turnover when their head coaches were fired, both when Lou was here and after he left. That's why Bleedred reacted as he did - turning over more than one assistant in a given year here is pretty rare; only when Lou left in 2015 did the entire staff turn over (and even then, Terreri stayed on as goalie coach).

 

[My3Sons]

Honestly, I feel like the idea of a new head coach being allowed to bring in all of his own assistants is something that exists on this forum for some reason and not in the actual league. Usually the new head coach only brings in one assistant of his own, sometimes two. Colliton seems to be that guy for Keefe.

McGill and Sarge are both still fairly new assistants. They were only here for half of Ruff’s tenure.

Now the guy that I’m really surprised is staying on is Chris Taylor. He was Ruff’s handpicked guy to bring in. I’m pretty shocked he’s still here. I thought he’d for sure be gone.

Separate from them but still part of the staff and assistants, I’m also shocked Rogalski survived, but that I kind of saw coming after the post-deadline goalies performed well. I did not at all see Chris Taylor staying. I actually thought there was a better chance he’d end up with Lindy in Buffalo than be here for another year.

For what it’s worth, Fitz said something in one of the pressers. Can’t remember if it was the end of season presser or the one for Keefe’s hiring. He was asked about the assistants and he said something like “they’re the same assistants we had a record season with the year before”.

Fitz also added "and Rogalski stays as long as Bleedred keeps emailing me that we have to keep him since he is the key to our goaltending excellence the past few years"

 

[NjDevsRR]

Bratt and Nico's point production over their respective careers have been pretty close

Nico 452 games 353 points .78 PPG
Bratt 471 games 359 points .76 PPG

That close you have to give the nod to the center...A true two way center is way more valuable than a winger.

But...

Bratt has been a little more durable and is incredible with the puck and on the rush. He's certainly more fun to watch. I just feel like Bratt may have more room to hit higher plateaus than Nico does..

Still taking the center, it's just I could imagine a future monster season from Bratt before Nico.

Glad we have both

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Your telling me, in the midst of a debate about a player, if someone brings up HD or something similar and the other person says "it doesn't tell the whole picture," it's not met with "it's ok you don't understand it"?

I guarantee the first person to think, "hey this guy has been on the ice when this many goals were scored for the team and this many against, he must be pretty good." And then continued with that until people adopted +/- as stat they thought told a lot more about a player than it actually did. The first people to say, "wait a second here, you guys are missing a ton of info" were more than certainly met with the same tone.

Also Mercer had a down year, but you are describing someone way worse than what we saw, even if he played poorly.

I don’t see that happen very often, no. Far more people claim there is zero value in whatever stat rather than suggest it tells the whole story. You can find a blowhard of any stripe.

I don’t think you could overstate how bad the guy was basically the whole season. He was as bad or worse than no legs Timo. I was almost hoping to hear he was playing through something but I didn’t see that unless I missed it. He’s probably the biggest X factor on the team going into next year.

 

[Bleedred]

...but I literally gave you two very recent examples of competitive teams where a new HC turned over the majority of the staff. So that's a very interesting statement to lead off with. And I never said all. In fact, I said verbatim, "normal to have some holdovers."

I wonder how long the Panthers assistants were there before they were wiped out? Obviously one of the assistants was Andrew Brunette, who started out that season as an assistant or maybe even associate, but replaced Quenneville 5 or 10 games in. I know Rob Tallas has been their goalie coach going back to the days of DeBoer as the Panthers head coach, but I know you’re talking main assistants. I don’t know how long those assistants were all there, but perhaps they were cleaning out most of the Quenneville staff from three years prior.

I’m not sure about the Rangers staff. Maybe they weren’t there for very long before Laviolette. I know Gallant has a right hand man he seems to take everywhere with him. Forgot what his name was. DeBoer has one in Steve Spott, although he didn’t have him here or in Florida. I think he stayed behind in Kitchener to replace DeBoer as Kitchener head coach after he left for the NHL. But he was with him San Jose, Vegas and now Dallas.

Like I said, I am surprised all of them were kept. I don’t have an opinion on Chris Taylor one way or the other. But I am surprised he’s still here. I always figured Sarge would be back and I was 50/50 on McGill.

I don’t think it’s imperative that we change out all the assistants. I think McGill did a good enough in 22-23 and like Chris Taylor, I don’t know enough about what Sarge does to have an opinion on him.

One thing I think we should all be glad of is that Travis Green is out. That in itself is huge. He was also the one guy on the staff that we had last year, who we didn’t have the year before. I honestly don’t think management had much interest in having anybody back in 24-25 who was here in 23-24 and not 22-23. And if we look around, I can’t think of too many guys that were retained who were here last year but not the year before. Other than MacDermid and Allen. And they were only here for a few minutes last year, and we all know why MacDermid is here.

Nemec might be the only guy that was here before March of last season, who wasn’t on the team the year before, but will be on the team in the coming year.

 

[Triumph]

I don’t see that happen very often, no. Far more people claim there is zero value in whatever stat rather than suggest it tells the whole story. You can find a blowhard of any stripe.

I don’t think you could overstate how bad the guy was basically the whole season. He was as bad or worse than no legs Timo. I was almost hoping to hear he was playing through something but I didn’t see that unless I missed it. He’s probably the biggest X factor on the team going into next year.

Mercer blocked a shot and missed some shifts in a game somewhere mid-season and that seemed to really set him back. It would not surprise me if he played through a serious foot injury for several weeks.

 

[JimEIV]

I don’t see that happen very often, no. Far more people claim there is zero value in whatever stat rather than suggest it tells the whole story. You can find a blowhard of any stripe.

I don’t think you could overstate how bad the guy was basically the whole season. He was as bad or worse than no legs Timo. I was almost hoping to hear he was playing through something but I didn’t see that unless I missed it. He’s probably the biggest X factor on the team going into next year.

Curious if you think Mercer was worse at center or wing? You know he took almost as many faceoffs as Jack did this year.. I know Jack was sidelined from center duties for a good portion of the year but 265 to 317 in the face off category...

And at wing was he worse when he was centered by McLeod, Lazar, Haula or Nico or Jack? He was centered by all of them.

How do you think he was on the PK?

What about that 2nd unit PP?

Do you think crazy usage had anything to do with his rough year at all?

 

[glenwo2]

Hischier > Bratt

Defensively?

YES. 1000%

Offensively? Eh...debatable.

Especially when Bratt can drive a line.

 

[TrufleShufle]

I don’t see that happen very often, no. Far more people claim there is zero value in whatever stat rather than suggest it tells the whole story. You can find a blowhard of any stripe.

I don’t think you could overstate how bad the guy was basically the whole season. He was as bad or worse than no legs Timo. I was almost hoping to hear he was playing through something but I didn’t see that unless I missed it. He’s probably the biggest X factor on the team going into next year.

You don't see it very often, meaning it happens sometimes, which means the "far more" who say it has zero value should be overwhelming. I have yet to see anyone say it has "zero value." People are dismissive of the way it used at most, so I'm confused by who has "imaginary people" in their head they are battling against in this situation.

And I do think you can overstate it, which is what I said you were doing. Nobody is disagreeing he played poorly compared to what we have seen from him or even in general. Might fight over why he didn't play a certain way, but regardless. The way you put it was pretty hyperbolic.

We can agree that he is the biggest X factor going into next year, though. Him turning into Jack's mercenary like a Hyman type would be massive. But I'm still of the belief that if he can get back to even where he was and progress some from there, with his playstyle, he would still be a pretty big asset even in the bottom 6. Obviously holding out hope for the better version though.

 

[glenwo2]

Both are about 80 point players, but one is a Selke caliber center and one is a really good winger. I always choose a (a Selke caliber) center if those are the options.

Ah. So that's the criteria you use.

Defense trumps offense.

Fair enough.

I'm more of the "offense is more sexy" variety.

 

[TrufleShufle]

Both are about 80 point players, but one is a Selke caliber center and one is a really good winger. I always choose a (a Selke caliber) center if those are the options.

Also one of them is doing it from the 3rd line which is even more impressive.

 

[glenwo2]

This oughta be good... that's better than any bait I have today.

Throw the granade in the middle of the room and duck ..or not


I love it.

Please tell us you just outed yourself without telling us you outed yourself.

Never thought you'd admit that everything you post is aimed to start "debate"(heated arguments)....

 

[JimEIV]

Please tell us you just outed yourself without telling us you outed yourself.

Never thought you'd admit that everything you post is aimed to start "debate"(heated arguments)....

I love debate...my mind has been changed on plenty of things here from well made arguments...makes you better.

You think we're supposed to all sit here and agree and not challenge opinions?
Let's all talk about flowers and ponies? Nah.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Curious if you think Mercer was worse at center or wing? You know he took almost as many faceoffs as Jack did this year.. I know Jack was sidelined from center duties for a good portion of the year but 265 to 317 in the face off category...

And at wing was he worse when he was centered by McLeod, Lazar, Haula or Nico or Jack? He was centered by all of them.

How do you think he was on the PK?

What about that 2nd unit PP?

Do you think crazy usage had anything to do with his rough year at all?

I believe Jack took literally zero faceoffs after injury 2 so thats not surprising.

I genuinely don’t remember a stretch of games where I thought he was playing well last season. I’m not even kidding, I don’t remember one line “clicking”.

PK was bad when the games still mattered it felt like and then it did okay I guess. That wasn’t his issue last year.

PP2 was unspeakably bad and he has no business on PP1, so not sure what can be gathered from that.

I think usage had nothing to do with his poor play. He was just bad and didn’t deserve any bump in playing time or line mates.