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

[JimEIV]

Correct, the Flames were a little better than us at preventing chances. But Markstrom had MUCH better results than our goalies.

And we ended up sending away the defenseman with the worst defensive results last year, another guy who dragged down every pair he was on (who has sucked for YEARS), we’re getting back the best possession d-man, we replaced another mediocre guy with a pretty good one. There’s turnover and Keefe will have to navigate that, but I don’t think improved forward defense is the only thing that’s going to drive a markedly improved defense next year.

A lot of players sucked last year but there was also a lot of synergy going on with that suckness. I'm not even remotely implying that Pesce and Dillon won't help a lot, they will, but defense isn't just Defensemen and goaltending always either reaps the rewards or suffers the consequences of what's happening in front of them.

I think the defense will no doubt be vastly improved but it remains to be seen whether or not our team defense can or will improve? I'm not really saying either way...what I am saying is a significant portion of team defense comes from responsible forwards. And we have never really seen much in terms of responsibility from our forwards in more recent years.

Keefe has a big job if that is indeed what he's looking to move towards

 

[Wierzbowski426]

Thankfully Keefe is coming from a team loaded with superstar forwards who weren't known for their defense, who he by all accounts, got to play defense.

 

[JimEIV]

Thankfully Keefe is coming from a team loaded with superstar forwards who weren't known for their defense, who he by all accounts, got to play defense.

And by all accounts he was able to get those superstars to play the way he wanted them to...so that is definitely encouraging. I'm really looking forward to the first half of the season.

I'm sure whatever he plans to implement is going to take some time to work into the collective muscle memory...so the evolution of next year's team is going to be most interesting to me.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

The Flames were never in as bad of a mess defensively as we were all season.

Even after losing half their defense they we weren't as bad as we were defensively.

It's going to be interesting to see how much Keefe can get out of our forwards defensively... Pesce and Dillon along with Dougie coming back should no doubt make big a difference...but defenders need forward support and I don't think our defense has really ever seen much if any forward support.

???????????

The Flames allowed 3,932 CA at 5 on 5. The Devils allowed 3,737 CA at 5 on 5. The Flames and Devils allowed nearly the exact same # of high-danger CA (735 to 731)

 

[Better Call Sal]

My meme for the season (for you wrestling fans): I believe in Paul Cotter.

 

[Maine Fan]

Ranking (bottom to top) of NJ Devils fowards:

11 Peter Cotter
10 Curtis Lazar
09 Stefan Noesen
08 Tomas Tatar
07 Erik Haula
06 Ondrej Palat
05 Dawson Mercer
04 Timo Meier
03 Nico Hischier
02 Jesper Bratt
01 Jack Hughes

I saw this ranking and thought it represented the Devils correctly. Exciting on our way to the second round of NHL hockey, the playoffs.

Let's Go Devils in '24-'25

 

[Maine Fan]

Source for the above rankings:

Ranking the New Jersey Devils forwards from worst to first for the 2024-25 season

The New Jersey Devils forwards look enticing, especially those young scorers who will only get better once the 2024-25 season gets going.

pucksandpitchforks.com

 

[JimEIV]

Ranking (bottom to top) of NJ Devils fowards:

11 Peter Cotter
10 Curtis Lazar
09 Stefan Noesen
08 Tomas Tatar
07 Erik Haula
06 Ondrej Palat
05 Dawson Mercer
04 Timo Meier
03 Nico Hischier
02 Jesper Bratt
01 Jack Hughes

I saw this ranking and thought it represented the Devils correctly. Exciting on our way to the second round of NHL hockey, the playoffs.

Let's Go Devils in '24-'25

I think Noesen is a little too low. I think I would put him above Tatar and Palat... Just a hair below Haula.

 

[Hisch13r]

Ranking (bottom to top) of NJ Devils fowards:

11 Peter Cotter
10 Curtis Lazar
09 Stefan Noesen
08 Tomas Tatar
07 Erik Haula
06 Ondrej Palat
05 Dawson Mercer
04 Timo Meier
03 Nico Hischier
02 Jesper Bratt
01 Jack Hughes

I saw this ranking and thought it represented the Devils correctly. Exciting on our way to the second round of NHL hockey, the playoffs.

Let's Go Devils in '24-'25

Mercer SHOULD be 5 but after last year he should be lower. Noesen/Tatar/Mercer is all debatable after Tatar/Mercer both having big down years

 

[Bleedred]

Strongly agreed with this. On that note, can someone (maybe @Bleedred) explain why Markstrom is still rated so highly? Seems to have good high danger sv% and was >.905+ on a bad Flames team last year but he’s struggled 2 of the last 3 years and I’m not sure if his low save percentage in the last 1-2 months was age and use related breakdown or the team becoming worse. What are people expecting from his this year? Is VV 22-23 realistic?

Also, completely separate note, which poster used to have the Phil Hartman in jingle all the way as their pic? I can’t remember but deeply appreciated the ref

Analytically he’s rated pretty highly. But when I was running these numbers a while ago, I found that he was not as bad in 22-23 as his numbers suggested, nor was he quite as good as they suggested in 21-22 when he had the Vezina finalist season.

At one point last season about 2/3rd’s of the way through it looked like he was having a career year. But he dropped off a bit the last month or two, but still had a very good season.

If we can get 22-23 Vitek numbers out of him I’d be happy with that. At least regular season wise.

 

[JimEIV]

Mercer SHOULD be 5 but he after last year he should be between Haula and Tatar.

Mercer had 4 fewer goals than Tatar and Haula combined last season

 

[Hisch13r]

Analytically he’s rated pretty highly. But when I was running these numbers a while ago, I found that he was not as bad in 22-23 as his numbers suggested, nor was he quite as good as they suggested in 21-22 when he had the Vezina finalist season.

At one point last season about 2/3rd’s of the way through it looked like he was having a career year. But he dropped off a bit the last month or two, but still had a very good season.

If we can get 22-23 Vitek numbers out of him I’d be happy with that. At least regular season wise.

He was a killer for the Flames in 22-23. He gave up a goal on the first shot like 9 times lol

 

[NjDevsRR]

 

[Hisch13r]

View attachment 893820

You're boutta get jumped for posting Bader's stuff

 

[NjDevsRR]

You're boutta get jumped for posting Bader's stuff

 

[Rhodes 81]

Bader is a knob but that's ok because this is saying something nice about the Devils.

 

[Maine Fan]

Presently, July 10, 2024, known at 10:20 AM DST, the NJ Devils have $4,976,103 left of Cap Money.

Hooray, terrific, Thanks Fitz.
After what he has done to improve the '24-'25 team to still have that much money left is amazing. It happened because he fixed our goalie problem and got the other teams to retain 31% (Markstrom) and 50% (Allen) of their salaries. (Remember I screwed up and forgot the retention in another post and was corrected) Outstanding job, the Devils are paying $6.05 Million for two (2) goalies next season that is only 6.9% of the Salary Cap.

So now Fitz can work on an extension for Mercer either short term, 2 yrs or Long term 6 yrs. Plus he has about 4 RFAs to sign, no big deal.

We are in good shape money wise, IMO.

I think we are so lucky, as Devils Fans, to have Tom Fitzgerald as GM and Sheldon Keefe as HC.

This will be our year to be in the real NHL hockey season, the second round, the Playoffs.

Let's Go Devils

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Mercer had 4 fewer goals than Tatar and Haula combined last season

Man got outscored 54-39

 

[Hisch13r]

Man got outscored 54-39

The only regulars with a worse GF% were Nate and Nosek who played 54 and 36 games

 

[TrufleShufle]

Mercer had 4 fewer goals than Tatar and Haula combined last season

Yea but he was really useful his first two years and got us all insanely excited and didn't do as good last season. So he was absolute garbage trash and as useless as a Smith who couldn't PK.

 

[Hisch13r]

Yea but he was really useful his first two years and got us all insanely excited and didn't do as good last season. So he was absolute garbage trash and as useless as a Smith who couldn't PK.

He was trash.

 

[TrufleShufle]

He was trash.

The entire team was. He will be fine.

 

[JimEIV]

Yea but he was really useful his first two years and got us all insanely excited and didn't do as good last season. So he was absolute garbage trash and as useless as a Smith who couldn't PK.

It's made 10 times worse by people that believe in those dumb player cards or the in a vacuum singular stats that someone made up their basement learning a new Excel feature with a new data modeling technique they learned in their 2nd year Data Science class.

Works in baseball though.

 

[TrufleShufle]

It's made 10 times worse by people that believe in those dumb player cards or the in a vacuum singular stats that someone made up their basement learning a new Excel feature with a new data modeling technique they learned in their 2nd year Data Science class.

Works in baseball though.

"It's the best we have though"

Translation-believe it whole heartedly and defend it to death, anyone who says it has flaws, "just doesn't understand it, lol." Then they come up with the new best thing and that way of looking at stats becomes outdated and useless "lol, still using that?!" Rinse repeat.

 

[My3Sons]

He was trash.

trash is pretty harsh. To me that suggests he was completely unplayable and a huge deficit on the ice all the time in every situation. He wasn't great but he scored 20 goals and I wouldn't put him in the below replacement level category. Are you down on him as a player or just disappointed in last season and expect improvement given his age?